Affinity
by Allonympt
Summary: Toby has an affinity for other people. Oz starts to realize that's not such a good thing. Rated T for swearing and violence.
1. Chapter 1

**Affinity**

Summary: When someone is a mind reader, how much of their empathy for other people is theirs and how much of it is simply the influence of other people?

Authors note: This is my first venture into this fandom. I don't know much about medical practices or police procedure. Forgive me.

Disclaimer: Not mine. No money made.

* * *

**Affinity**

People had an affinity for Toby. They liked his face, the way he looked at them and really saw them. Oz had seen that right away about Toby the first time he met the guy. Oz was a hell of a lot better people-reader than most gave him credit for. Of course, give Toby five minutes alone with a person and it didn't take him long to freak them out. So even though Toby was flat out one of the nicest guys Oz knew, and people liked him, Toby really didn't have many friends. Toby, despite being a mind reader, sucked at the long term relationship thing.

So Oz made a point of being totally awesome at the long term relationship thing. Oz was a kick ass friend, as witnessed by the double double currently cooling on the dash with Toby's name on it and the fact that even though Oz was bored out of his skull he was still patiently waiting for Toby to send up the bat signal.

Toby, of course, was totally failing to do so. Oz tapped the wheel impatiently, and tossed back the rest of his coffee. The bottom was all sugar syrup and he swished it around a little before giving up and rolling the rim for...oh, _please try again_. The cup went into the garbage bag under the seat. Oz eyed the clock, weighed his boredom, and reached for Toby's coffee.

"Is that for me?"

"Geeze!" Oz nearly knocked the cup over, but Toby caught it. He was wearing that annoyingly knowing smirk. "Give a guy a heart attack, will ya?" Oz snarked half heartedly, "Boss man'll love that – his own paramedic carted in with cardiac arrest on the job. You're going to get me fired yet."

"Nah. The boss man loves you." Toby had already pried open the lid and was juggling the cup as he buckled his belt with his other hand.

"Really?" But Toby was too busy blissing out over the coffee to answer. Oz started the wagon and pulled out into traffic, "you get what you need?"

"Nothing," Toby said, and the frustration was creeping into his voice, "not even a hit. I don't know Oz, I wasn't really running with a strong thought to begin with."

"Yeah, but you had something right? It'll come to you. It always does." Oz was a kick ass friend and he had absolute confidence in Toby.

"Just a flash." Toby sighed, "Somebody on the edge, thinking about jumping. Or flying." Toby grimaced. " I can't really tell. There might not have been any real intent behind it."

Oz glanced in the review mirror, and took in the height of the building receding into the city skyline. He whistled. "People think stupid things all the time. I bet ninety-nine percent of them don't actually do anything about it."

"Mmmm," Toby hummed non-committally. Oz swallowed the urge to blow a raspberry at his frequently preoccupied friend and got on with the business of driving.

* * *

It had started slowly. After Toby had blown Oz away with the whole big telepathic reveal thing, Oz had completely rearranged the little puzzle pieces that had never quite fit with his mental image of Toby. The picture had come together slowly, and that's the only reason Oz figured Toby hadn't plucked the worry right out of Oz's head; there was no big epiphany moment for Toby to latch onto.

Little things, like Toby staving off a lecture from the boss man by offering tickets to a hockey game that Toby didn't actually have.

"Oz." Ryder looked back and forth between the two of them. His expression settled in a familiar, sardonic smirk, "Toby. I've just returned from defending your actions to the board _again_. I told them you were exemplary paramedics, and I stand behind every harebrained, half-assed, flakey, inexplicable decision you make, because you're my people, and I look after my people. Unless, of course, they prove themselves incapable of toeing the line and must be replaced. But that wouldn't be you, would it? No. You know exactly where the line is and no way would you even consider stepping over it."

Oz tried real hard to keep from twitching under Ryder's gimlet stare, and knew he was wearing the stupid, hang dog expression he couldn't seem to help whenever someone dressed him down. "No sir." He said, "No over stepping lines." Beside him Toby, the lines? What lines? guy, was as silent and helpful as a dead fish. Ryder was staring at Oz like he could read Oz's mind. Toby twitched, and came back to life.

"Won't happen again, sir," Toby lied outright, "look, I had a change of plans tonight, and I won't be able to use the tickets I got to the hockey game." He was doing the whole wide-eyed, intense thing that scared most people off, "I know you're a fan. You want them?"

Ryder's face smoothed into something almost pleasant. "I've been trying to get tickets to that for ages. It sold out almost immediately." His natural suspicion returned, "How'd you get tickets, Logan?"

Toby shrugged, "Just lucky, I guess."

"Bring 'em in at the end of your shift," Ryder said, "I need to hit the bank. How much do I owe you?"

As they hustled out of there, slamming the ambulance doors, Oz hissed at Toby, "Tickets to the hockey game? Since when, you suck up?"

Toby shrugged helplessly, "I don't know, all right? Shit, we have to the end of the shift to get our hands on some."

"We?" Oz asked archly, "I'm not the one with the super mutant mind powers here."

* * *

Little things, like Toby arranging sudden dates with Liv.

"Liv, Liv, Liv," Toby schmoozed, "you're looking especially competent today."

"I'm busy," Liv said. She did not look up from the chart she was perusing with unblinking, hungry, bald-eagle like attention. "With the drunk, abusive, aggressive mountain of a head-wound you dumped in my ward."

"I knew you could handle it." Toby said. He was giving Liv that wide eyed innocent face that looked more like an acid trip than a puppy dog. Oz waited for Liv to shoot him into burning rubble.

Her mouth quirked. Toby's eyes got impossibly wider.

"You're good at handling things." Toby said. His hip cocked and he draped himself over the counter to angle his face closer to Liv's.

Oz had to go bleach his _brain_.

* * *

Little things, like the psycho in the back of their ambulance who had a gun that Toby, for some weird unknowable Toby-reason that Oz was going to chew him out for later (because, really, what was the point of having super powers if you didn't get things like this), hadn't known about. A gun said psycho was now pointing at Oz's best friend.

"I know who you are." The psycho said and Oz nearly careened the ambulance into oncoming traffic. This was it. This was the government come to take Toby to some far-off secret government lab where they would do horrible things to him and Oz would never know what ever happened to Toby. God Damn It. Was the psycho American? Secret government labs were always hidden in America. Oz wasn't sure. He sounded kind of flat. He could be American. This was very, very bad.

"You're the friend of that cop. That cop who testified at the LaPaige trial last week."

Fwheew. Oz relaxed. Not a secret government agent then. Just a run of the mill psycho. Oz tensed up again.

"You spend a lot of time together. She likes you." There was blood all over the front of the psycho's shirt. Oz wondered suddenly if it was fake.

"Hey man," Oz called back, because Toby hadn't said a word yet. Toby hadn't even raised his hands when the psycho pulled the gun. "Hospital's coming up soon. We can get you some help. You want help, right?" Oz flicked his gaze between the rear-view window and the road. "There's blood all over you."

"Turn the lights off." The psycho said. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. Toby took it without being asked. "Follow those directions." The psycho said. Toby passed the paper up. It was a map-quest page, and the directions led right out of the city and northward. "Turn your radio off." The psycho added. Oz flipped the switch.

"I can help you," Toby said suddenly. It was the most animated he had been since the psycho had pulled the gun. "I can get you what you want." He had that look on his face, the one that made his eyes very, very blue.

_Uh oh_, Oz thought.

The thing is, it doesn't take long to drop off the radar. Sure, the folks back at the office would notice pretty darn fast that one of their ambulances wasn't checking in, that the patient said ambulance was supposed to be transporting never showed up at the hospital. But people never expected the worst. It might take them a bit to decide what to do about it and by the time the missing ambulance would be reported it would already be out of the city. Oz knew this. He didn't figure on there being any kind of bat-man rescue before things got too far. Things had already got too far. Toby was being _helpful_.

The psycho laughed. "I know you can." He said.

Oz flashed to every torture scene, every horrible demise, and every creepy sexual assault he'd ever seen in a movie. The psycho had that kind of laugh.

"He means he can help you stop that bleeding." Oz said sharply. "Put the gun down, man."

"Shut up." The psycho said. "Just drive."

Oz drove.

"Does she tell you things, your girlfriend?" the psycho said. He was still pointing the gun at Toby. "I bet she does. I bet she whispers all her secrets across the pillow. She tell you about LaPaige?"

"You're his brother." Toby said.

There was ice in Oz's veins. After two years in the court system, two years splashed all over the newspapers, Oliver LaPaige had finally been convicted and sentenced for the serial murders of three families. Oliver LaPaige was violent and terrifying and unrepentant.

The psycho was suddenly very quiet. The gun didn't waver.

"Yeah."

"You think Charlie planted the evidence." Toby said. His voice was lilting and dreamy. Oz flicked his eyes over the road then fixated on the review mirror again. Toby didn't look frightened at all.

"Ollie's smart." The psycho snarled. "Damn smart. He's always been a cunning little fucker. No way he left anything for the police to find."

"He did it." Toby said. "You know he did it."

"What is wrong with you?" The psycho shouted, and suddenly he was right up in Toby's face. The gun was under Toby's chin.

"Hey!" Oz shouted and swerved into the other lane. The oncoming car laid on its horn and Oz jerked the ambulance back into his own lane. "Hey! Shit! There's no need for that!"

"Are you high?" the psycho said. "What the fuck are you looking at? Are you fucking tripping?"

"Jesus Christ, put the gun down!" Oz shouted.

But Toby just stared at the man. His face was totally blank.

The gunman sneered, drew back the hand with the gun in it, and whipped Toby across the face. Toby went down with an almighty crash. Supplies skittered across the floor.

"Jesus Christ!" Oz shouted again and slammed on the breaks. Everything slid forward.

"Fucking drive!" The gunman shouted, and Oz looked up to see the gun now pointed at him in the rear view mirror.

"No!" Oz said. "I need to check my partner."

They stared at each other in the mirror.

"Pull over." The psycho said. Oz pulled over. His hands were shaking.

"Get up. Slowly."

Oz stood up. He hunched his shoulders against the low ceiling of the ambulance.

"Take three steps."

Oz stepped toward the gunman. He carefully skirted Toby's out-flung arm.

"Turn around. Get down on your knees. Stretch one hand behind your back."

Oz did as he was told.

The cold metal of a hand-cuff snicked closed around his wrist. There was a slight tug and Oz looked over his shoulder to see the other cuff go around Toby's ankle.

The gunman had hazel eyes. Oz had never seen anyone with eyes so empty.

"I don't need you." The psycho said. "You're collateral. Don't try anything." He stood up and stepped over Toby to slide into the driver's seat. He held the gun on Oz the whole time.

The ambulance shifted into drive and pulled back into traffic.

Getting kidnapped had never happened to Oz before. Oz figured he should have factored the possibility in after Toby's big reveal. Didn't people who were friends with super heroes get kidnapped all the time? It was practically in the job description. But, Oz reasoned, they weren't being kidnapped because of Toby's super secret special abilities. They were being kidnapped because Charlie was a hard-nosed, no-holds-barred Dick Tracy type detective and she didn't think to keep Toby freaking leashed to her side. Therefore, it wasn't Toby's fault.

Oz carefully slid his free hand through Toby's hair and along his cheek bone. There was blood, and swelling, and Toby was going to have one hell of a headache, but nothing worse. Oz shifted and cleared a space on the floor next to Toby. He sat back against the side of the ambulance.

_C'mon buddy_, Oz thought as hard as he could. _Wake up. Don't leave me hanging here_. Toby stirred. _Wake up_, Oz thought again. Toby's eyes blinked open.

"Wha..." Toby said. Then his head whipped around to stare at the front of the ambulance before he dropped it against the floor again and moaned.

"Not so fast," Oz said. "Easy now."

Toby rolled his face against the floor until Oz could see one eye glaring irately at him.

_There you are_, Oz thought. _Could have used you when that psychopath was back here pointing a gun at you. Where'd you go Toby? Never Never Land? _

"Can you sit up, Toby?" Oz said. "I want to get a better look at you."

"I don't know." Toby said, and Oz wasn't sure which question Toby was answering. Toby sat up slowly and suddenly seemed to realize they were cuffed wrist to ankle.

"Scoot towards me," Oz said. "Your legs over mine. Bend your knees." _Don't get shy on me now_.

Toby did as he was told and scooted foreword until he was almost sitting sideways in Oz's lap. Oz carefully tilted Toby's chin up. "Can you follow my finger?" Neither of Toby's eyes were blown open or lagging. Oz sighed gratefully.

_What's going on in there Toby? You zoned out for way too long_.

"I...I don't know." Toby murmured. "I just...I wasn't thinking."

"Headache?" _You were going to help the crazy guy! We don't help crazy people do crazy things! That's bad!_

"I wasn't...thinking." Toby said again. He scrunched his eyes closed and pressed a fist against his forehead. "It wasn't me. I couldn't think."

"Okay, okay." Oz said. He wrapped his free arm protectively around Toby's shoulders. Oz was a kick-ass friend like that. "We are in the rig. You want a pain killer?"

"No." Toby said. "They don't work on me." He looked at Oz. "I've got a high tolerance."

Oz could read between the lines. Toby meant the kind of high tolerance that came with experience and a built up resistance and a bad history. _Do you know where we're going?_ Oz thought instead.

Toby nodded. He looked down then carefully began tracing letters against Oz's jean-clad thigh.

T-H-E W-O-O-D-S

C-A-B-I-N

3-0 M-I-N-U-T-E-S

It wasn't too far out of town then. Not so far that they'd still be on the road by the time the word got out. Hell, the nearest neighbour was probably two minutes away.

S-O-M-E-T-H-I-N-G W-R-O-N-G

Oz snuffed at Toby. _Sherlock Holmes you ain't_.

"I can't think." Toby said again. "It's not me."

Oz stared at Toby. _Something wrong with your mind reading? Your powers are going wonky – now? Bad time, Toby. Very bad time!_

Toby looked miserable. For someone who had kept major secrets all of his life, he was ridiculously expressive.

_Can you fix it?_

"I don't know." Toby said, and covered his ears with his hands. Oz didn't think that was a very effective solution for a mind reader.

"Toby, look at me." Oz said. _Pay attention to me_. "Can you do that?" _Can you focus on me_?

Toby fixed wide blue eyes on Oz. That vacant, stupid look he got when he was zoning out and listening to other people's thoughts was back on his face.

_Uhhhh,_ Oz thought, and couldn't believe his mind was going blank trying to think of something to think about. _So, how are things between you and Liv? 'Cause I gotta admit, buddy, I just don't get that thing you two've got going on..._

Oz chattered in his head until the ambulance pulled to a stop.

The psycho hopped out of the driver's seat and Oz could hear him moving around to the back of the ambulance. The back doors were flung open.

"Un-cuff yourselves." The psycho said. He was pointing the gun at them again. The keys landed with a clink on the floor next to Oz. Toby snatched the keys before Oz did and un-cuffed his ankle. He tossed the keys back to the gunman without un-cuffing Oz's wrist.

"Hey!" Oz said.

The gunman stared at Toby. "Good." He said. "Get out of the ambulance."

They got out. The empty cuff swung against Oz's thigh.

"Walk." The psycho said.

They walked. They weren't too far off the main road. Oz could still hear the occasional noisy vehicle speed passed. It was a run-down old house surrounded by old growth trees. It didn't look much like a cabin. It did look like the kind of place a serial killer might like to cook up and consume the bodies of his victims.

"It's not locked." The man said. "Go inside." They went inside. The kitchen was a cheery yellow and there was an empty dog bowl on the floor next to the door.

"The cellar door is to your left."

Toby went first. He flicked on the light switch without asking where it was. They walked down into the cellar.

"There's a cast iron grate bolted to the wall on the right. Thread the cuff through it."

Oz threaded the cuff through the grate. Toby waited passively beside him.

"Put the cuff back on." Toby grabbed the cuff, fumbled, then clicked it shut around his wrist.

The gunman stared at them. "If your police friend pulls through," He said, "I won't kill you."

Oz didn't believe him for a second.

The psycho clicked the safety on the gun and went back upstairs. Oz could hear him moving across the kitchen floor. The door slammed. After a moment, a motor started up and drove away.

"He's moving the ambulance." Toby said.

Oz started and jerked the handcuffs. "What the hell, Toby! What on earth is wrong with you? Tell me right now!"

"I'm sorry, Oz." Toby said. And he did look really, really sorry. "It's like, he's thinking so loud, so strongly, that I just get caught up in it and I'm thinking whatever he's thinking. I can't help it."

"Shit." Oz said. "Shit, Toby. Is it usually like that?"

"No." Toby said. "I mean, people push but usually I can tell the difference between what's my thoughts and what's their thoughts, you know? I don't have to get moved by them."

Toby hunched his shoulders against the grate. He looked like a puppy that someone big and mean had just kicked for no reason. Oz tried to remember that he was a little upset with Toby at the moment, then figured Toby could probably pick the sudden desire to protectively shelter Toby right out of Oz's brain. Oz sighed and pressed a shoulder of camaraderie against Toby's.

"It's not your fault." Oz said. "We're just going to have to practice. Stretch those mental muscles. Devise some extremely tough and possibly acrobatic exorcises to train the budding mutant cum superhero on his path to vigilante fame..."

Toby huffed and grinned at Oz. It was open and honest and so honestly relieved that Oz had to catch his breath. Toby, Oz realized, didn't often smile honestly. He must have been pretending most of the time.

Oz felt...accomplished.

"So," Oz said. "How are we going to get out of here?"

* * *

Author's note: This is a work-in-progress. I don't usually post works-in-progess because I'm a terrible procrastinater and a compulsive re-worker. But this idea has been sitting at the edge of my brain and refusing to go away for months. Please let me know what works and what doesn't. I'm hoping that will spur me on. This is also my first multi-parter. I hope I can do it justice.


	2. Chapter 2

Affinity Part 2

* * *

Oz had a date.

This, of course, was because Oz was totally sexy, and funny, and an all-around hot catch and the girl (legs up to her ears – Oz wasn't kidding) had great taste in men.

Oz was thinking about phoning her and telling her he had syphilis. Or maybe his gold fish had died. No, he knew what to say: Toby was having crisis of some sort – um, hair trouble? Toby did have that ridiculously tousled look going on. He probably used product. Maybe he'd reacted badly to it and all his hair had fallen out? – and was totally in need of a boys night out.

Yeah.

What if he got there...and she changed her mind? What if she hadn't really been asking him, but the guy behind him? Who had been standing behind him?

"I was standing behind you, you spaz," Toby said, "and trust me, she wasn't asking me. I _know_."

"Yeah?" Oz said. "She was thinking about me? What was she thinking, Toby? You can tell me; I can take it."

"She was thinking you're cute, okay? You got nothing to worry about, Oz. You're great."

"I'm awesome." Oz said automatically. Then he cringed. "Cute? Really? Not, like, dashing, or handsome, or...or regal, or something? Cute, like, puppy cute?"

Toby rolled his eyes. "It's just a date, Oz. She's not going to eat you alive."

"Like you've ever worried about a date in your life, Mr. Psychic. You know what they're thinking the whole time."

"She likes you, Oz. Go with it." Toby smirked. "Don't tell her you have syphilis."

"Oh, ha ha." Oz grumbled. "Funny guy." He pulled a blue shirt off the rack and held it up. "How about this one?"

"Green," Toby said. "Find something in green."

"Right." Oz put the blue shirt back and wandered further into the racks. He didn't realize he's lost Toby until he heard the door alarms go off and heard the clerk yelling, "Sir! You can't just leave, sir! Hey, stop!"

Toby was standing in the doorway. A security guard was grabbing his arm.

A man shoved passed Oz.

"Hey!" Oz said, then shook it off and followed on the man's heels to the door. The man pushed passed Toby and the security guard and out into the parking lot.

Oz stopped. "Is there a problem?" He said. The clerk at the counter finally turned the alarm off.

"None of your business." The security guard snapped.

"Um." Toby had a blank look on his face. He clearly wasn't tuning into the audible conversation. Oz was not above lying to cover for his friend. He was a kick-ass best friend like that. Oz whipped out his wallet.

"We're paramedics" Oz said and flashed his credentials. "We just got an emergency call-in for overtime. We have to go. Is there a problem?"

The security guard was not mollified. "Turn your pockets out." He told Toby. "What's in your bag?"

Toby slowly pulled his pack off his shoulder and unzipped it. The blue shirt Oz had been looking at earlier was stuffed inside.

Oh, shit.

"I asked him to hold that for me while I was looking for more, you know?" Oz said quickly. "Must have forgot when we got the call. He's eager to get to work, saving lives, aren't you Toby?" Oz shoved Toby behind him and pulled sixty dollars out of his wallet. "Here, that's more than enough, keep the change, we have to go now, sorry about all the confusion, you're doing an excellent job, keep it up, bye!"

The security guard didn't believe Oz for a second but the shirt was paid for and Oz shoved Toby out the door as fast as he could. The two of them hurried to the car and pulled out of that parking lot like the place was on fire.

Oz didn't say anything for a long time.

"I'm sorry." Toby said. Oz didn't look over to see if Toby was staring at him with big blue eyes or staring shamefaced out the window. "I don't know why I did that."

"The guy who walked passed us at the door," Oz said. "Was he thinking about shop lifting?"

"I..." Toby said. "Yeah, he was."

"You're not a shoplifter." Oz said.

Toby snorted. "I'm a foster kid with barely controllable telepathic abilities. It wouldn't be the first time."

"You're not a shoplifter." Oz said again. Obviously, Toby hadn't heard him. "You're not a thief, you don't steal things, you don't hurt people, you don't even say mean things to people. You have an unshakable moral code and you do the God damned right thing even when it kills you. You're a nice guy, Toby. I know that because I know you. And I don't have to be a mind reader to know that about you."

When Oz finally looked over, Toby was staring out the window. Oz sighed a long, noisy, obnoxious sigh. Then he reached over and mussed up Toby's hair.

Yup. Definitely used product.

* * *

It was cold in the basement. Oz sighed and yanked on his cuff for, like, the millionth time. Toby hissed at him.

"Will you stop that? It's not going to come loose and you're making _my_ wrist sore."

"We can't just wait for that psycho to come back, Toby." Oz said. He was trying really hard not to get sarcastic with his best buddy, but Toby – after a few initial attempts to first pick the lock then unscrew the grate – was just sitting there. Like a lump. Like a big, goofy, telepathic lump who had nothing better to do than sit around and wait for...

"I can hear what you're thinking." Toby said. He sounded annoyed.

"Don't you have any useful abilities?" Oz said. "Like, I dunno, _talking_ into other people's heads? Like psychically dialling Charlie up and saying, 'Hey, Charlie. If it's not too much trouble, can you come and rescue us before the crazy psycho that's really mad at you does something horrible and permanently scarring to us?' Post traumatic stress, Toby. I'm going to be crawling up the walls if we don't get out of here soon."

"Post traumatic stress happens after the horrible event, Oz."

"Right," Oz said. "Like getting kidnapped at gun point isn't terrible enough. We should get out of here now. So there is no horrible event."

Toby didn't even pretend to fiddle with the hand cuffs. "People only know how to magically pick the locks with their magically handy hair clip on TV, Oz." Toby said. He sounded tired. Oz didn't for one minute imagine Toby was tired with him. "I'm not wearing any magical hair clips, Oz." Toby continued. "Are you wearing any magical hair clips, Oz?"

"No, _Toby_." Oz said through gritted teeth. He gave the hand cuff one more good yank for good measure. Toby scowled at him.

"How about the grate?" Oz said. He examined the bolts. It looked like someone had deliberately stripped all six bolts. Oz didn't think he had anything to unscrew them with anyway.

"Shit." Oz said. He slumped against the wall and tilted his chin up to stare at the ceiling. Toby mirrored the pose.

"We're not getting out of here on our own, are we?" Oz said after a while.

"Charlie will come." Toby said.

"That's the stupidest plan ever." Oz said, but there wasn't any heat in his voice. "Did you get any hits off that psycho?"

"His name is Andy LaPaige." Toby said.

Oz snorted at the universe. "Not Jack the Ripper? Not Robert Pickton? We're being kidnapped by someone named Andy?"

"He's Oliver LaPaige's older brother. He loves his brother. For a long time it was just the two of them against the world and it was Andy's job to make sure nothing bad happened to Ollie. He didn't often succeed. They were just kids."

"LaPaige." Oz said and looked at Toby. "He's not Ollie to you, Toby. You don't know him."

"...Yeah."

"And they're not kids anymore."

"I know."

"What's going on, Toby? You don't usually slide like this, do you?"

"Mostly, I get hits." Toby explained. "That's when I'm blocking it out. I'm usually blocking it out." Toby shivered. Oz knocked his shoulder against Toby's and left it there. "When I concentrate, I pick up a cacophony of thoughts – like everybody shouting different things at the same time. It can be hard to sort out. And sometimes, not so often now that I'm older, certain people are easier to hear. Those people who are really focused, really pushy: the strong personalities. They sneak up on me, sometimes." Toby looked at Oz. "I mean, sometimes I hear their thoughts and it takes me a bit to realize they're not mine."

"Like Andy LaPaige today," Oz said. "You did what he wanted."

Toby nodded. "The hits usually come in pictures: A really strong emotion – like fear, or shock – and an image of what's causing the fear. I know I'm not really seeing that, so I know it's not me. But the ones that sneak passed, they're usually desire or wanting of some sort. Like, Andy LaPaige really wanted us to do what he said...and it felt like I wanted that." Toby dropped the eye contact and hung his head. "Those types of thoughts are harder to sort through, harder to filter out."

"Shit." Oz said. "Guess being a super hero isn't all it's cracked out to be, huh? Even you got your kryptonite."

"I'll work harder." Toby said. "Ray's helping me. It's all a matter of practicing harder. I can get it under control."

"Okay." Oz said. "But for now, repeat after me: I am not a psycho gun-wielding serial murderer wannabe. I am not a psycho gun-wielding serial murderer wannabe. C'mon, Toby, work with me here."

"Thank God you say everything you think and think exactly what you say." Toby said instead. "You're so simple, compared to everyone else Oz."

Oz was not trying to plant his thumb in his best friend's ribs when the psycho came back.

They quieted, listening to the footsteps cross the kitchen and move toward the back of the house. Oz swore he could see dust motes falling from the basement ceiling with every ominous step Andy LaPaige took above. LaPaige did not come down the basement steps.

"Charlie knows LaPaige kidnapped us," Toby whispered. "He's contacted her. He told her to admit she planted evidence at the last crime scene. He told her he'd kill us if she didn't. He told her she would never find the bodies. He said she couldn't tell anybody and he would know if she did."

"Would he?" Oz whispered back, "Know if she did?"

Toby closed his eyes. His mind was very far away. "Not right away. He was lying. He thinks the threat will be enough."

"Charlie's smart. She'll tell."

"Yeah."

Oz listened but he heard no further movement upstairs.

"He watching TV." Toby finally said. "Seinfeld reruns."

"I watch Seinfeld reruns!" Oz felt strangely outraged. "Seriously? _Seriously_?"

"Well, hell, Oz," Toby said, "He's not an alien. That's what people do when they have nothing better to do – they veg on the couch and watch stupid TV."

"He's a serial killer's brother and he has two kidnapped paramedics chained up in the basement." Oz hissed, "Shouldn't he be, like, plucking the eyeballs out of teddy bears or something? What kind of self respecting psycho is he?"

"Are you really complaining that he's not plucking the eyeballs out of teddy bears?"

"No." Oz deflated. He added dully, "Teddy bears have feelings, too."

* * *

Charlie Marks hung up the phone and considered her options. The voice on the other end had been distorted and unfamiliar but there were very few people in the world capable of sympathizing with Oliver LaPaige.

It had been a good arrest. Charlie had crossed every T and dotted every I. There was no way in hell she was going to leave even the possibility of a technicality for that animal to get off on.

She shoved her chair away from her desk and grabbed her jacket.

"Becker!" Charlie banged on Becker's office door as she rushed passed. "I know where that missing ambulance is!"

* * *

It was really damn cold in the basement. Oz huddled up against Toby and 'accidently' jabbed his elbow in Toby's ribs. Toby ignored him. Toby had that look on his face that meant he was listening to whatever the psycho upstairs was thinking. Oz studied his friend. No wonder LaPaige had flipped on him. He really did look like he was tripping on something.

Oz gave into his better impulses and stuck his tongue out at Toby. Then he stuck a finger in the corner of his mouth and pulled his face sideways. Oz was a totally mature friend like that. Even traumatizing, terrifying, horribly stressful circumstances couldn't bring the Oz-man down. Oz was great for morale.

"Quit panicking, Oz." Toby said. "Your face might freeze like that."

"I'm not panicking. I'm cool. I'm cool as a cucumber. I'm cool as a cucumber about to get eaten by a psychopath with a gun. And shit, is he moving again?" Oz watched the ceiling. Toby shushed Oz.

Andy LaPaige walked down the hall and into the kitchen.

His steps paused, then shuffled quietly across the floor.

"He's making KD."

Oz made a face at the realization that he had another thing in common with the psycho. Then his stomach growled.

"He gonna bring any down here?"

"Yeah." Toby cocked his head sideways, as if he actually was listening to something. "He's not putting anything in it. You can eat it."

That idea hadn't even occurred to Oz. Oz shuddered. _Thanks, Toby_.

"You're welcome."

Oz blew a mental raspberry.

The steps above shuffled across the floor again. The basement door opened. Andy LaPaige stood framed by the light from the kitchen.

Oz tried really hard not to think about every scene he'd ever seen that involved axe murderers or hockey masks.

LaPaige came down the stairs.

"Do not move."

Oz thought about trying to kick LaPaige's legs out from under him. Oz thought about catching LaPaige's head between his knees – no matter how he'd get the leverage to do that – and breaking the man's neck. Oz thought about ripping the grate out of the wall in a feat of hulk-ian strength and charging LaPaige.

Oz did not move

No thanks, Hollywood.

LaPaige put two bowls of KD on the floor and slid them toward Oz and Toby.

"Marks hasn't called yet."

"She will." Toby actually sounded reassuring. Oz thought, I _am not a psycho gun-wielding serial murderer wannabe. _

LaPaige considered them for a long moment. Oz wished he knew what the psycho was thinking.

"You have until morning." LaPaige said. "Then I'll shoot the short one." He went back up stairs.

"Shit." Oz moaned. "I'm the short one, aren't I? He meant me, didn't he?" And Toby, mind-reading wonder that he was, clamped a hand over Oz's mouth before Oz could holler after LaPaige, "I'm not that short, asshole!" Instead, Oz yelled, "Hmm nht thhtt sssst, ahhhsslll!"

Toby wiped Oz's spit on his pants.

"Feel better?"

"No." Oz sulked. "I'm going to get shot tomorrow. God, I'm gonna die tomorrow. Shit, Toby, Charlie's gonna pull through, right? Tell me she's gonna pull through."

"Charlie will come through. She's bringing everybody, Oz. We'll be out of here before morning, with a story to tell."

"Right." Oz took a deep breath. Then he took another. "Right."

It took a little manoeuvring, but Toby finally managed to hook one of the bowls of KD with his foot and drag it closer. The second bowl remained stubbornly out of reach.

They split it up the middle, and took turns with the spoon.

* * *

Author's Note: Thank you, MamzelleHermy, Highonstargate, and Here To Annoy for the encouragement. It really helps to get me moving.

I struggled with this chapter because I needed to include so much exposition and because there is very little actual movement in it. I hope it doesn't totally collapse your expectations.

Next chapter will see some action.


	3. Chapter 3

Author's Note: Thank you Master Li, mav32, Soului, xLaurelCullenxx, Tragedy of Fenwick, and Athena Rue. Your comments kept my brain working on this even when I felt completely stuck and frustrated with it. I really appreciate the cheering section ^_^. And yes, we really do need more Listener fic! Where is it all?

* * *

**Affinity Part 3**

* * *

In the suburbs, the stars were as bright as the guiding lights to Never Never land. The neighbours had long since locked their doors and gone to bed. Three houses down, the Jamison's damn dog wouldn't stop barking. Holt Charleston tipped back the last of his beer, contemplated the stars, then chucked the bottle vaguely in the damn dog's direction. "Shut up!"

The bottle hit something.

Then it rolled to a stop in the grass next to Holt's lawn chair.

Holt sat up.

_Holy Shit_.

The goddamned..._SWAT_ was sneaking up the side walk, past Holt Charleston's white picket fence.

Holt gaped. There was body armour, and guns, and that weird crouching motion that meant big events were afoot. It wasn't really SWAT, because Canada didn't have SWAT, but Holt hadn't known there was such a thing as a Canadian equivalent, either.

The man who had stopped to throw the bottle back at Holt gestured.

Holt stood up, tripped, and grabbed the back of his lawn chair for balance.

The man gestured again.

"Whu..." Holt squeaked. "What?"

"Go inside." Good God, that wasn't a man at all. It was a woman.

"Sir." She said again, "Go inside."

Holt went inside. But he couldn't resist spying out the window.

* * *

"Toby?" Oz whispered. He twisted a little and wriggled his toes in his boots. His butt was going numb from sitting on the cold cement floor for so long. "I can't feel my legs, Toby."

"I'm not helping you with that, Oz." Toby said serenely. He had his eyes closed and looked for all the world like a man on the beach in Margaritaville.

"No, seriously," Oz said, and wriggled some more, "I'm about to...ah, ah!" His calf cramped up. "Charlie horse! Damn it, charlie horse!" Oz crouched and bounced on his toes, trying to rub the ache out with his free hand. Then he tipped over and kneed Toby in the gut.

"Oz!"

They untangled themselves and Toby shoved Oz against the grate. Oz rubbed his calf until the ache went away and thought about old Three Stooges skits – poke in the eye! Bop on the head! Trip over each other and they all fall down!

"If anybody's a stooge here, it's not me."

Finally! Toby had been moping and brooding half the night and, God knows nobody was getting any sleep, if anybody should be moping and brooding it should be OZ. But Oz really wasn't built for long term brooding and certain doom just made Oz unaccountably itchy and awkwardly vocal. When Oz was little (Okay, when Oz visited his mother), his mom would give him the fish eye and every single thing came pouring out of his mouth: yes, he was using the dryer as a clean clothes closet; yes, he'd eaten the chocolate brownies she'd given him for breakfast; yes, he was living off crappy microwave dinners and he'd flubbed up the last date he'd been on because he'd told the girl she smelled awful. He'd meant to say awesome. Or wonderful. And it'd kind of all smooched together in this really..._awful_ way. Ha.

So. Oz simply couldn't handle the silence. He had to say something. It was a compulsion. Really, it just meant Oz was this fantastically honest person and who wouldn't want a friend like Oz – a friend incapable of keeping any secrets?

"And your mom wonders why a nice boy like you hasn't found a nice girl to settle down with yet." Toby smirked. "You really told her she smelled awful?"

"It's not what I meant to say." Oz grumbled. "I was thinking two words at the same time, and they just came out at the same time." Oh, right. Toby was the friend Oz couldn't keep any secrets from.

And just like that, the little peek of sunshine behind Toby's gloomy clouds was gone. "Like you have any deep, dark secrets anyway." Toby looked away from Oz.

Toby was like those tall, dark, and troubled characters on TV; underneath the heroic surface, there was always some sort of angst going on. It was really, really exasperating sometimes.

"Oh hell, Toby. You think I care?" Toby could be so darned touchy when it came to talking about his telepathy. He talked around it, like he didn't really know how to describe it. Oz had to admit, Toby didn't have much practice. But still... "Well, I mean – I _care_ – because you're my friend and I care, right? But I don't care if you hear what I'm thinking because you're my friend and that doesn't matter...God Damn it, Toby. You're an ass."

"What?" Toby's head whipped up to stare at Oz and Oz felt pleased. He'd been practicing that manoeuvre since the big telepathy reveal – saying what he was thinking before he thought it. Surprisingly, it actually came fairly easy to Oz.

"You're an ass." Oz enunciated clearly. "Seriously? I'm your side-kick, or right-hand man, or _whatever_, and you're really going to question my...my integrity, my commitment, my friggin' devotion, _now_? It should be, like, a fixture in your cosmos Toby. You're not allowed to worry about whether or not your best friend is pissed about something you can't help. I'm not, okay? You can expect that."

"You're a girl, Oz." Toby said. But he was looking at Oz with that little half smirk that made Ryder assign them double shifts, and Becker treat Toby like he was low-life scum, and that Oz knew meant Toby was really, honestly amused. It usually got Oz in trouble, too. If Toby hadn't been the foster kid with the fucked up past and debilitating telepathy, he probably would have been a natural hellion. Even so, that smirk still made Oz want to button down the hatches. "Seriously, only girls declare their best friend forever status out loud like that. You know that, right?"

Oz snorted. "As if you don't know."

"Yeah, I know."

"When we get out of here, you're coming to the restaurant with me for dinner. Mom and dad will cook you up more food than you can eat. Home cooked stuff. None of that bachelor crap."

"I'll eat it all." Toby promised.

"Good." Oz said. Then he wondered if he'd get home for dinner. God. Had anybody contacted his parents? They must be frantic.

"I'm sorry, Oz." Toby said. "I shouldn't have doubted you. You're a great friend. The best."

"You should be sorry. I'm in this basement with you, aren't I?"

"Yeah." Toby flicked Oz's ear. It was totally an apology. "You are."

* * *

The house was silent and still. The bare bulb over the porch spilled a yellow light down the steps and to the edge of the walk way. The squad crept up the drive and moved to surround the house. Harold (don't call me Harry) Wolfe was leading the Emergency Task Force operation. They were going in with less information than advisable, however Sergeant Becker had put a rush on the operation and it was time sensitive.

Somewhere in that house, two city EMT's were being held hostage.

No effort was being made to contact the hostage taker. They'd even cut the phone lines. It was against protocol, however quick mobilization and the dark of night were on their side. Wolfe hoped they could storm the house and defuse the situation before anybody inside realized the jig was up.

The team got into position.

Two officers poised the battering ram between them. Wolfe signalled the count: Three, two, one.

BANG!

BANG!

It gave on the second try. They dropped the ram, kicked the door all the way open, and invaded the house.

* * *

"Do you hear that?"

Oz was growing weary. His initial panic had subsided until he just felt numb. God Damn, but the hard part of all this was the waiting. It wore at him and made him feel small.

There was an odd noise somewhere in the house above their heads.

"He's waking up." Toby watched the ceiling like he could actually see what LaPaige was doing. Oz couldn't help trying to see what Toby was looking at. It was like those drivers who slowed down to gawp at a wreck; one driver slowed down and suddenly all the other drivers had to look at what he was looking at, even if they couldn't see anything. Oz had always thought they were morons.

There was nothing on the ceiling for Oz to see.

But Oz could hear it now. A dog was barking frantically nearby. A woman was shouting but there was an odd quality to her voice, like static or distortion. "Andy, you asshole! There's fucking police in my fucking house! What have you done! What have you done?" There was a crash, and a man ordered her to put her hands up and step into the middle of the room.

The dog went silent mid-bark.

The house was dead still.

"What's going on?" Oz demanded.

"I can't..." Toby sucked in a deep breath. His eyes were blown wide and he had a look of intense concentration on his face. "I...I can only hear LaPaige. I can't hear anybody else."

"Is it our rescue?" Oz had never felt so grateful, so relieved, in his entire life.

"Andy's pissed." Toby was completely focused on what he was hearing in his head. "He's coming down here."

"What?" Someone was running down the hall above their heads. Oz's heart beat crazy fast and the blood rushed in his ears. "He can't do that! The police are here. They're gonna stop him!"

The door to the basement slammed open against the wall like thunder.

* * *

BANG!

Sara Tucker woke with a fright.

Kody was barking up an almighty storm downstairs.

BANG!

She heard the front door fly open and she _knew_, she knew.

Andy had set the shortwave radio up next to her bed. It had been a present, shortly after his brother's trial had completed and Oliver had received the verdict they'd all seen coming. Andy had been in a foul, vicious, violent temper for months.

Sara hadn't told him she'd been pleased to see Ollie out of their lives. Andy could get mad, but Ollie was off. She'd never liked being left alone in a room with Ollie, even though she knew he'd never touch her because she was Andy's girlfriend. Ollie always respected Andy's lines.

But after the verdict, Andy hadn't settled down. He'd got worse. He was up night and day and he was quiet. For the first time ever, he scared Sara.

Then he'd given her the radio, and told her he had to go away for a while. He said he had business and he wouldn't be able to answer his phone but, if she needed to contact him, she could get him on the radio. He set the frequency and told her he would leave his end on, always. He showed her how to use it, and he touched her real sweet.

Sara wasn't sure if she wanted him to come back.

But she didn't want to see him in prison, either.

She lunged across the bed, flipped the radio on, and yelled, "Andy, you asshole! There's fucking police in my fucking house! What have you done! What have you done?"

Her bedroom door flew open and a gun was levelled at her. "Put your hands up! Now! Get away from the table. Step into the middle of the room!"

Sara released the transmitting button.

* * *

LaPaige looked like some kind of monster. Oz knew it was probably the stark terror he was feeling, but LaPaige looked bigger, and meaner, and less human than anything Oz had ever seen.

Toby moaned like a wounded animal and curled up as far away as the cuff would let him.

LaPaige came down the stairs.

He was carrying a gun.

Oz reached out blindly and hauled Toby against him. Toby smelled like sweat and fear and familiarity. When Oz had been sixteen, he'd fallen off some scaffolding and hit his head. He'd woken up, tried to stand, and passed out again. He'd passed out three times before he'd woken up with his face pressed against his father's chest and the smell, the familiar, safe smell of his father, had grounded him when everything else – sight and sound and orientation – was spinning.

Oz breathed deep.

"Don't," Toby said. "Don't. It's too much." He covered his ears.

LaPaige stopped. Oz waited.

The keys landed at their feet.

"Uncuff yourselves."

Toby didn't move. Oz reached out his free hand and fumbled. He was shaking so hard he couldn't pick the keys up. Finally he grasped them and fitted them to the lock. He uncuffed himself first and, without looking at LaPaige, uncuffed Toby as well. Toby never removed his hands from his ears. His breath panted warm and wet against Oz's arm as Oz worked to pull the cuff off Toby.

"Stand up."

Oz stood. His knees creaked like an old man's and his back ached from sitting on the floor for so long. Pins and needles burned up his thighs. Beside him, Toby stood as well.

LaPaige looked at them.

"Your police friend didn't come through."

Shit, Oz thought. Shit. He closed his eyes.

* * *

"They're not here!" Marks yelled and stormed into the bedroom. They had cleared the house top to bottom and there was no sign of Logan, Bey, or LaPaige. They had never been in the house.

The woman, LaPaige's girlfriend, was sitting on the bed in a pink nightie. Her face was white.

Wolfe looked at Becker. "You have five minutes." He said. "Don't do anything stupid." And he cleared the remaining officers out of the room before shutting the door behind him.

It was just Becker and Marks and the girl in the room.

"Where is Andy LaPaige?" Charlie demanded.

"I don't know." The girl didn't look up. "He never told me where he was going."

"He didn't tell you anything? Leave a name? An idea of what he was doing?"

"No! Nothing! He was really upset about his brother, you know? He needed some time to...go think about it."

"If you know anything," Charlie threatened," anything at all, and you don't tell me right now, I will make damn sure you get put up on charges of conspiracy to kidnap, withholding information, hindering a police investigation, God Damn jay walking if I have to. I will ruin your life and I won't stop."

The girl started crying.

"Marks." Becker was examining something on the bed side table. "Look at this."

It was a shortwave radio. The frequency was already set and it smelled like new plastic. The girlfriend probably hadn't had it for long.

"We cut the lines," Becker said softly, "but she could have contacted him with this."

Charlie was back across the room before she knew what she was doing. Becker grabbed her fist before she could strike the girl. He squeezed Mark's wrist. The warning was clear: _Don't touch her_.

"Where is he?" Charlie snarled. Spit wet the girl's cheek.

"I –I-I really don't know. He didn't tell me. He didn't tell me." The girl was having a hard time catching her breath. "Please, I didn't do anything."

"Your boyfriend has kidnapped two EMT's. You're not going to get any sympathy from anybody, _sweetheart_. Make a wild guess. Where is he?"

"There's...there's a place. He took me there for the weekend a couple times. It was better than a hotel, because I could bring Koby. M-my dog, Koby. It's a house. It's about an hour and a half from here."

* * *

Oz closed his eyes.

Toby threw himself at LaPaige. He leaped across the distance between them like he was going to rip LaPaige in half. LaPaige jerked the gun up in surprise.

Toby stepped on the forgotten bowl of KD.

His foot went out from under him and he flailed over backwards. The gunshot went over his head.

Oz shrieked. That noise hadn't really come from him – really – and tackled LaPaige himself. They went down in a tangle of limbs and the gun skittered across the floor. LaPaige snarled like an animal and clawed at Oz's face. LaPaige was bigger than Oz but Oz had mindless desperation on his side. They wrestled and struggled across the floor.

LaPaige got a thumb in Oz's eye and Oz jerked away reflexively. LaPaige followed him. Oz swung but LaPaige kept on coming. He got his hands around Oz's throat and squeezed.

Oz clawed at LaPaige's hands.

Somebody was making weird mewling noises. Oz struggled to breath and fought against LaPaige's hold. His vision was greying out.

The gun went off.

LaPaige let go suddenly and Oz slumped bonelessly against the floor. The cement was cool against his face and Oz panted until his mind steadied and his heart beat slowed. Then he looked up.

Toby dropped the gun.

* * *

Author's comment: So. I had a lot of point of view changes in this chapter. I really wanted to draw out the suspense and give you guys some action in this part and honestly, I couldn't figure out how to do it if I stayed in the basement with Toby and Oz. I hope the point of view changes worked for you and weren't confusing. Please let me know if you had any problems with it. Thanks for reading!


	4. Chapter 4

**Affinity part 4**

* * *

Author's note: Thank you Soului, xLaurelCullenxx, Karine, Master Li, ElementalKitty, holly76, and WickedBluerose! I had a hard time stopping there too – so I got this part done a little faster than I normally work. I'm a little worried about the characterization, but I wanted the characters to show the stress of the situation. Please let me know if it works.

WickedBluerose – thanks for the question! I'm going to answer it below, okay?

* * *

"Toby?"

Toby flinched and backed up as if Oz had struck him. Oz was muddled. He couldn't read the look on Toby's face.

"Toby?"

LaPaige moaned.

Oz was on his knees and kneeling beside LaPaige before he made the conscious decision to move. The man was lying face down on the floor and there was an ominous puddle spreading across the concrete underneath his torso. Oz ran practiced hands down the length of the man's neck and spine. The bullet had entered the back of his shoulder and Oz couldn't tell if it had shattered against the bone or gone straight through. There was obviously some form of exit wound, given the amount of blood under LaPaige, but Oz wasn't confident it hadn't nicked the man's spine.

LaPaige moaned again.

"Hey," Oz said, "Hey! Can you move your feet?" Exit wounds were usually worse than entry wounds. Oz needed to get pressure on the wound in LaPaige's chest. "Hey! LaPaige! Move your foot!" Oz could flip him over, damn the consequences.

LaPaige's foot twitched.

Oz cradled LaPaige's head and flipped him over. LaPaige shrieked. Oz shrugged out of his uniform shirt and pressed it against the wound.

"Toby, go upstairs."

Toby did not move.

"Toby. _Toby_. Tob-buddy. I need you with me, here, okay? I need you to go upstairs, find the phone, and call 911. Can you do that, Toby? 911, Toby. Call 911. 911, got it?"

"911." Toby said. "I need to call 911."

"Good, Toby. Go." LaPaige was going to bleed out under Oz's hands. Oz pressed down and yelled at Toby. "Go!"

Toby turned and ran up the stairs. "Bring towels when you come back!" Oz hollered after him and bent to the task of saving LaPaige's life.

When Oz was twenty-one, he was in a car accident. The car had been T-boned by a mini-van blowing through a red light. The driver of the other car was running the red and she had been going at least twice as fast as Oz. Oz remembered the split-second he saw the van looming towards him. He remembered the shock of the passenger door buckling in. He remembered looking across the bent wreckage of his hood and the shocking spider- white glass of the other vehicle. The woman had been unconscious and pinned to her seat by the air bag.

The door handle had been jammed. Oz had kicked at the door until it had fallen open and staggered around to the driver side of the mini-van. The woman had roused briefly but hadn't been really coherent. Oz talked to her and pressed his jacket against the bloody wound on her thigh until emergency services arrived.

They told him later that he saved her life.

Oz hadn't thought about it. He'd just done it. And for the first time, he had some inkling of what he might do with his life other than work in his parent's restaurant. They said he was quick thinking, and he had good instincts. Oz took his first first-aid course. Than his EMT basic. And Intermediate. And finally his Paramedic certificate.

He liked it. He really felt like he was doing something worthwhile. Oz had good instincts. His first instinct was to help.

Oz applied pressure to the gunshot wound in LaPaige's chest and prayed he could save this life. He had feeling it was a lot more than LaPaige's fragile soul under his hands.

Toby skidded to his knees beside Oz and Oz tossed the bloody shirt aside to press a clean towel against LaPaige's wound. Toby had the phone tucked in the crick of his neck, between his shoulder and ear.

"They're coming." Toby told Oz. "I'm holding the line until the ambulance arrives. Police are on their way too."

Oz wanted to say _tell them to hurry_ but he knew they were coming as fast as they could.

"Tell them to hurry." Toby said, and it took Oz a moment to realize Toby was talking to the operator.

"Toby?" Toby was white. His eyes were blown wide and bluer than blue. He had to be in shock.

"Toby, how are you doing?"

"The ambulance is on its way."

LaPaige whined again and mindlessly swatted at Oz's arms. Oz pressed down hard and did not – _did not_ – feel a low, mean, curling hint of satisfaction at the noise LaPaige made.

"Tell me about you, Toby." _I want to know how __**you're**__ doing_.

"I'm fine." Toby said. "I'm doing fine."

"Uh hu." Oz did not believe Toby for a minute. He figured, when they got out of this, there were years – _years _– of expensive therapy ahead of them. It was a good thing Toby had a shrink on speed dial. Oz was totally going to use his best friend status to horn in on that action.

The sudden sound of sirens wailing in the distance and speeding closer was a choir of angels. Oz wasn't a religious guy or anything, but really, he could have got down on his knees and cried halleluiah. Well. He was already on his knees. Oz honestly didn't think he'd ever heard anything so beautiful, and he spent half his working days listening to the damn things.

LaPaige had gone still under Oz's hands and was in a state of deep unconsciousness that Oz knew meant death was fast approaching. Toby, if it was even possible, looked worse than LaPaige. _Thank God they're here_.

"Thank God they're here." Toby said, and Oz realized Toby was telling the operator that emergency services had finally arrived,

"I'm going to hang up now, okay?" Toby sounded like he was struggling to talk through a haze, "I'm going to lead them in."

_I'll keep pressure on the wound_.

"I'll keep pressure on the wound." Toby froze in an awkward crouch, half way standing up. He looked confused, distraught.

Oz was a trained paramedic. He knew how to triage. Toby was going to have to wait. He wasn't dying.

"Go point the guys towards the basement, Toby. I got this."

Toby went.

Oz did not have a minor – minor, barely noticeable, hardly there – freak out. LaPaige didn't notice the difference. He was unconscious.

Oz heard the paramedics thunder across the kitchen floor above his head and heard Toby say, "Down there." And then they were pulling him away from LaPaige and putting an oxygen mask over the man's face and plugging in a bag of fluids and rolling LaPaige onto a stretcher.

Oz sat for a minute and gathered himself. Then he realized he was sitting in a puddle of blood and he got up without anybody noticing and went upstairs.

The hallway had floral wallpaper. The mirror in the bathroom was one of those faux old-fashioned silver ones, like the looking mirror in Snow White.

Oz looked at himself. _Mirror, mirror on the wall_...no helpful voice gave him all the answers. He bent his head and washed his hands. Then he dampened a face cloth and dabbed futilely at his pants.

A hand fell on his shoulder. He looked up. Alisha Carr from second shift met his eyes in the mirror. For once, she wasn't smiling.

"We got Logan in the wagon." She said.

_Toby_.

Oz felt suddenly, unexpectedly furious. "With _LaPaige_?"

"No!" Carr paled. "Everybody knew this call was you two. We were all putting in over time, waiting for this call. There are three ambulances out there. We made sure there were extra wagons on shift."

Oz scrubbed at his face. "I'm sorry, Carr. I don't know what came over me."

"Hey," Carr gave Oz a limp attempt at a smile. "You get a free pass today, Bey. I'd be feeling a little paranoid too."

Oz took a deep breath and told himself to be cool. "I'm riding with Toby."

"Sure." Carr looked Oz up and down then reached out and grasped his arm. "Let's go now, okay Bey? I think we should get Logan looked at. He's looking a little green around the gills."

Carr led Oz back through the house and out the front door. Oz was shocked to realize it was still the middle of the night. The sky was clear and the stars were brighter than he'd ever seen. Oz shivered in the sudden cold.

They had turned the sirens off but the lights were still flashing. Oz could see the neighbours across the street staring out their window. LaPaige was getting loaded into the central ambulance. Carr tugged Oz away and guided him to her own wagon. Her partner waved at Oz from back, where he was sitting with Toby. He made room for Oz.

Oz hefted himself into place next to Toby. Carr closed the doors and went around to the driver's seat. The ambulance started up and pulled into motion.

"So." Oz contemplated the doors of the ambulance. They looked like every other ambulance doors he'd ever seen. "That was the singularly worst experience of my young life. I mean, I still got years to go, but I don't think much can top that. Maybe, getting eaten alive by sharks. Or killer bees, or zombies or something. But really, this is Canada, so the sharks and the killer bees would have an awful long way to go to get here, and they'd have to have some kind of vendetta to do it. Like, vigilante sharks. And I don't know what I'd have to do to piss off vigilante sharks." _Be friends with you_.

The unkind thought crossed Oz's mind before he knew he was going to think it. It wasn't even an angry thought; Just a wry observation that if shit was going to happen, it would happen to Toby.

Toby flinched.

"No!" Oz nearly leapt to his feet before he remembered they had an audience. Oz wrapped his hands around the edge of the bench and held himself in place. He stared at Toby, willing him to hear what Oz was saying.

_No. I didn't mean that Toby, you know I didn't mean that. I was just running my...my brain. C'mon. A hundred meaningless things have to cross my brain every day. A thousand. A trillion. I can't control that, and I never, never, never, never, never mean any bad things about you. You're my best friend, Toby. _

"I don't know what I'm talking about. Killer bees? Zombies? I must be hungry. I'm thinking about things that eat things. I can't think straight when I'm hungry. Hey, guys? You got anything to eat in here? I think I'm feeling faint. And Toby looks like he's about to fall over. Hey Toby? Buddy? How about something to eat?"

"Sorry Bey, we got nothin'" Carr's partner said. Oz barely stopped babbling.

"How about Tim Horton's? I could really go for some Timmy Ho's. It's open 24-7, right? Where are we? There's gotta be one near here. There's always one nearby." _Hey, Toby-buddy, are you with me here? C'mon. I didn't mean anything. _

"I hear you, Oz."

Oz stopped to breathe.

"Yeah, I could go for some Tim Horton's."

"Great!" Oz grinned at Toby. "Hear that, guys? Can we make a pit stop?"

Carr and her partner exchanged looks in the rear view mirror.

"I think we can make a quick stop." Carr said. She switched lanes and after a moment, pulled into a Tim Horton's parking lot. Oz suddenly realized he was hungry.

"Stay here, guys." Carr's partner ordered. "What do you want?"

"Chili." Oz said immediately. "And chicken noodle soup. Ham and Swiss cheese on a toasted whole-wheat bun. Oh! Long Johns, and Canadian maples. Extra, extra large coffee. Actually, better get two. How about a box of Timbits while you're at it?"

"Sure." Carr's partner said dryly. "Anything for you, Bay. Does your partner want anything, or should I just bring back the whole store?"

"Oz's eyes are bigger than his stomach." Toby said. "How about two bowls of chilli, and two coffees, and two apple juices? That should do it."

"Ah ha." Carr yelled back. "The voice of reason. I wondered where it'd gone." Her partner slapped Toby on the back and hopped out of the wagon.

He came back a few minutes later with coffee and juice and bags of hot chilli. Oz took his eagerly, and the slide of hot coffee down his throat made him feel human again. Yeah. Toby and Oz one; Psycho gunman zero. They totally kicked butt.

They pulled into the unloading bay at the hospital and Toby was still picking at the last of his chilli.

"You going to eat that?"

Toby handed it over wordlessly and Oz wolfed down the last of it before hopping out of the wagon and walking into the chaos of the hospital.

Hey, he had his partner and they were both _walking_ into the hospital. Things were good.

"Toby!" Olivia flew at them and wrapped her arms around Toby. "God, I'm so glad you're safe."

"Me too." Toby's whole body bent toward her. "Olivia."

"Hey," Olivia stepped back and held Toby in place so she could look at him. "There's a private room waiting for you. Let's get you checked out."

"Hey, what about me? What am I? Chopped liver?" Oz stuck his nose in their private, smootchy moment. Toby was his best friend. There were no _real_ boundaries between them.

"Oz is a girl." Toby told Olivia. He dropped his eyes and looked up at her through his lashes. "He thinks that just because he's my best friend, there are no_ real_ boundaries between us."

Olivia laughed, like Toby had obviously intended her to. She smiled at Oz. "And you, Oz." She tucked one arm through Toby's and the other through Oz's. "Seems I get to examine two handsome gentlemen today."

"Oz isn't a gentleman." Toby said immediately. "You should hear the things he thinks about all day."

"I suspect that's boys only club." Olivia winked at Oz and guided them into an empty examining room. The she released their arms and suddenly it was Dr. Fawcett in the room with them.

"Okay gentlemen. Have a seat. Toby, I'm going to look at you first, okay? Is there anything you want to tell me before we get started?"

Oz didn't need to be a mind reader to know what Olivia was thinking. She'd always known that Toby kept secrets from her. It was the pink elephant between them. Oz knew what he had been thinking when he had been in Olivia's place: _Tell me. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me._

Toby stared at Olivia. He opened his mouth. "I..."

"Dr. Fawcett?" A man in a police uniform knocked on the door frame_ after_ opening the door. "I'm Officer Jansen. I was wondering if I could get Mr. Bey and Mr. Logan's victim statements."

"When I'm finished." Olivia was seriously annoyed by the interruption. "This is a private examination room. Please respect the closed door."

The uniform nodded. "As soon as you're ready."

"Where's detective Marks?" No way this guy could interview them. It had to be Marks. Marks was the only one they could tell everything to. Oz had a gut instinct about this, and Oz always went with his gut instincts. Usually it involved food, but he was willing to make an exception today.

The guy – Jansen – cocked his head at Oz and examined him like a bug. Oz wondered if he had learned the expression from Becker. Oz concentrated really hard on not opening his mouth and saying something stupid.

"She's on a raid."

"Oh. When will she be back?"

"I'm not privy to that information." Oz figured that probably meant _they_ were not privy to that information.

"Could she do our interview?" Toby piped up suddenly. "'Cause I know her, and I really think I would be more comfortable talking to somebody I know."

"I will look into it." Jansen nodded at them and shut the door.

Olivia snapped the wrist of her latex glove. "Alright boys, let's get this show on the road."

* * *

Author pontificates:

Hi WickedBluerose,

You're my first ever question in fanfic! I'm so pleased you asked (really, I'm grinning like crazy right now ^_^).

KD is Kraft Dinner = bright, toxic orange macaroni and cheese in a box. It's a staple of university students, bachelors, and six year olds.

As for the premise, it actually comes from a few things that bothered me about the show.

Remember in the first episode, when Ryder chews Toby and Oz out (they were still establishing characters then) and Toby whips out the fact that he TiVo'd the fight and he'll make a copy for Ryder later?

It bothered me because that suck-up comment came totally out of nowhere and, even though Toby is a mind reader, what are the chances that he actually TiVo'd 'the fight' previously? It's never actually established as an interest of _Toby's_, and it seems a little out of character.

At this point, the show was still getting its feet, so I immediately started wondering just how much control Toby actually had over his telepathy. We hadn't really learned how the mind reading worked. So, as I watched the show, I already had this idea in the back of my mind.

Then we were introduced to the yo-yo relationship with Olivia; they go from flirty to business in two seconds flat. Olivia is a strong personality and a lot of that yo-yoing seems to hinge on what she wants. Toby can read her mind, of course – he can tell if she wants to work or wants to flirt – but Toby seems a little too conveniently responsive. Whatever Olivia feels, Toby seems willing to feel too (Simply picking up her thoughts puts him in the 'mood' ^_-). These aren't big things, just one way of reading the problems in that relationship. I'm not saying Toby's feelings were fake – just, what if they didn't fully originate in him?

So, that's when I really started wondering about the mind reading. Sure, Toby knows the big thoughts aren't his. But what about the little stuff? The 'Jeeze, I could really go for a cheeseburger right now' and 'hmmm, I'm sleepy' and 'hey, you're hot' stuff that kind of goes on without our full attention. How much of the 'wish I'd seen the fight' and 'let's flirt' is all Toby?

I imagine, as a mind reader, one might have a tendency to empathize with other people because one could really get another person's point of view. And if you were 'reading' (hearing? feeling? experiencing?) another's thoughts, would you be able to draw a strict line between your inclinations and theirs?

Anyway, I wanted to address this idea, because it's something that has been quietly bothering me since the beginning of the show and one of those avenues that will simply never be otherwise explored.

I hope that answers your question. If you ever have any more, I'd love to totally geek out over them! ^_^

Allonympt


	5. Chapter 5

Author's note: Thanks Master Li, WickedBluerose, xLaurelCullenxx, Soului, and anonymous reviewer! You guys keep me thinking about this even when I feel like I'm dragging my uninspired butt through it. I couldn't finish this without you.

A few questions: xLaurelCullenxx! You're totally missing out on a Great Canadian Tradition. Tim Horton's, affectionately known as Timmy Ho's, is a fast-food coffee and donut shop with a virulent presence across the entire nation. It's coffee is addictive, it's food is good and available 24/7, and it's named after a Canadian hockey player! Mmmm, does not get any more beaver-lovin' Canadian than Tim Horton's.

And anonymous reviewer...you totally caught me out on the Weapon X thing. I had that draft in various stages on my computer for a good month before I posted it, and the Weapon X thing literally popped into my head five minutes AFTER it went up. And Oz, being the total pop culture guy that he is, would know that. I had my fingers crossed it would slide. *sigh* But no, you guys are way to discerning. ^_^ Good catch!

* * *

Update: Typo fixed! Thanks Soului.

* * *

**Affinity part 5**

* * *

Once upon a time, there was the Toby and Olivia show. Toby flirted, Olivia flirted, and they both flirted around the edge of actually going anywhere. When the Toby and Olivia show was on, nothing else in the world existed.

"Hey." Oz shook his empty apple juice bottle at them then chucked it at the recycling bin. It bounced off the edge and rolled under the cabinet. "I have to go pee."

"TMI Oz." Liv tucked her pen neatly back in her pocket and smoothed her coat. Toby's eyes unabashedly followed the path of her hands.

"Seriously," Oz hopped off the bed, fetched the bottle, and dropped it in the bin. "My eyeballs are swimming. Do you think Robocop out there will mind if I step out?"

"Tell him you need a potty break, Oz." Toby flashed Oz a wicked look and Liv grinned.

"Har har." _Seriously Toby. 'Sides, Liv has been sending me vibes. Like total third wheel vibes. And Liv is not somebody whose vibes a healthy body ought to ignore._

"Go ahead Oz," Liv offered at the same time as Toby said, "I'm sure he won't mind as long as you don't leave the hospital." They both blinked and stared at each other. Annnnnnd, back to our regular programming. Oz rolled his eyes and slipped out the door.

Robocop – _Jansen_ - was standing as pretty as a rookie picture outside the door. Oz probably could have balanced a ruler across his shoulders. "Hey," Oz sidled passed the guy, "Any word on Detective Marks?"

"She has agreed to conduct your interview. You can expect her within the hour." Oz wondered if the guy got up in the morning and starched his face.

"Uhmm, great. I'm just gonna be right back, okay?"

"Please do not leave the building, Mr. Bey."

"No leaving the building." Oz held his hands up in mock surrender and backed away. "Got it." Oz turned the corner and relaxed as soon as he was out of the man's sight. There were a series of elevators at the end of the hall and Oz hit the button to go down. The hospital was a busy place 24/7 and there were very few places a guy could get some head space. The basement was quietest.

The elevator doors opened and Oz hurried down the hall. The basement was deserted. The few offices and work rooms were quiet, their doors shut and the lights turned off. Oz found the washroom and locked the door behind himself. He relieved himself, washed his hands, then stuck his head under the water.

It was _cold._

Oz turned the water off, shook his head, and sank to his knees. He breathed. Then he sat on the floor, pressed his back to the wall, and pulled Liv's phone out of his pocket. Liv didn't know Oz had liberated it, but Oz figured Toby would smooth things over for him if it came up. Oz pulled up her list of contacts and scrolled through until...uh huh. There is was: Ray Mercer. Oz had figured Liv would be both concerned enough and A-type enough to make sure she had the number of her occasionally peculiar love interest's shrink. Oz pressed send.

"He-hello?"

"Oh, shit." Ray had obviously been sleeping. It was the middle of the night. Duh. "Oh, shit, Ray. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up. I wasn't thinking. Uh, I guess this can wait, sort of. I'll call you back later, okay?"

"Who is this?"

"Uh, it's Oz. Oz Bey. Toby's partner?"

"Oz? Is Toby alright? Is something wrong?"

Had anybody contacted Ray? Ray had to be top of Toby's emergency list. Marks for sure should have put a call-in to Ray. "Um, well, Toby shot LaPaige, then he got all weird for a bit, but now we're back in the hospital and Liv has given us the all-okay and they're gonna get Marks to do the victim statement so nobody has to worry about what to say – or _not _say – and I just thought it would be a good idea if _you _came and checked Toby over, too, you know? Like, a – a you-type check over. In the head." Oz circled his ear with his finger to indicate a head check-over, then stopped when he realized that usually meant somebody was c-r-a-z-y. Toby was not crazy. Then Oz decided to stop being defensive because nobody could see what he was doing anyway.

"Toby shot somebody?" Oz could hear rustling and thumping on the other side of the phone. Damn it. He'd definitely got Ray out of bed.

"Uh, LaPaige. But he didn't kill him! At least, nobody's said if the guy died."

"You're both at the hospital still?"

"Yeah. For a little bit longer, I think. We're still waiting for Marks to get here. Then...should Toby go home alone? I mean, he's a grown man, but still...well. Liv will probably go with him." Oz would totally hang out with Toby if that's what his best friend needed. It's just, he wanted to reassure his parents that everything was okie-dokie because they were probably going out of their minds with worry (He should have called them first. Why hadn't he thought of that? Bad shit goes down and the first person he calls is Toby's shrink? Toby so better appreciate how damn much Oz worried about him. Oz deserved, like, a freaking award for this. A beer, at least.) and he wanted a shower - a shower in his shower, with his soap, and his towels. Then he wanted to sleep in his bed. With his pillows. Mmmmmm. God, it had been a long night.

"I'm coming out there. Oz, can you stay on the phone with me a little bit longer? I want to know everything you know. Start from the beginning."

"The beginning? Like, when we got nabbed by LaPaige?"

"Yes. When did this happen? Who is LaPaige?"

"Ah, well," Oz tried to organize his thoughts. "What do you already know?"

"Nothing." Ray was pissed. He was definitely pissed. Oz suddenly realized that the quiet, crisp tones on the other end of the line weren't simply Ray's egg-head training shining through. "I was not aware Toby had been...nabbed, as you say."

"Oh. Sorry." Oz totally did not want to be the guy dropping this information on Ray. Especially not after the fact. "I figured somebody would have called you."

"Somebody should have called me. I will make sure that gets fixed. For now, what happened Oz?"

"We got a call out yesterday to the industrial district. Work-related accident. But when we got there, the place was dead quiet – nobody there. We thought it must have been a prank or something, but then this guy staggers out of one from the buildings and there's blood all down the front of his shirt. I couldn't tell where he was bleeding from." Oz remembered how he and Toby had checked the doors and found them locked, how abandoned the place had looked, how long it had taken LaPaige to come out. "I guess he wanted to scope us out. Make sure it was us. He wouldn't be able to control who dispatch sent to the scene. We should check the records; see if there's been any other prank calls lately...practice runs."

"That's good thinking, Oz. You'll have to make sure to tell this to Detective Marks."

"Yeah." Oz closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall. His hair was dripping water down his collar. Oz shivered. "I don't think the blood was real. Once he got close, LaPaige pulled the gun and told us to get in the ambulance. After that, he didn't move like he was injured."

"Did he know who Toby was?"

"Not like that. Not like what you're thinking, about the...mind stuff, and stuff. He knew that Toby was friends with Charlie, and that Charlie had been the detective on his brother's case – Oliver LaPaige? Have you seen that on TV? – and he was gonna use Toby to force Charlie to screw with the investigation. It was stupid."

"What happened next?"

"He took us to this house and handcuffed us to a grate in the basement. He said he was gonna shoot me in the morning if Charlie didn't do what he said."

"That must have been frightening."

"I'm cool. I totally knew Charlie would pull through. Toby was a little freaked out though."

"He was worried about you."

"Yeah. But! You should have seen it – well, not seen it, 'cause we wouldn't want you to be stuck down there too, but it was totally awesome – because I totally tackled the guy, like, kung-fu ninja style, and we were fighting it out and I would have had him in a second – any second – and that's when Toby got his gun and shot the guy."

Ray was silent for a long time. Oz could hear him breathing on the other end of the phone. Then a car horn honked. Ray must have stopped at a red light and fallen too deeply into his thoughts to realize it had turned green. "He shot the man on purpose?"

"It was self-defence Ray. Nobody can hold that against Toby. LaPaige was a psycho and he was going to kill us."

"I'm not holding that against Toby. I'm just trying to figure out what happened."

"He shot the guy but he didn't kill him. He never wanted to kill him. So we called 911 and the police and the ambulances came, and we went to the hospital. LaPaige is in surgery right now. Olivia checked Toby and I over, and says we're both good to go." Oz decided to just say it, because he didn't know what else to do. "Here's the part I'm worried about:" _The part I want you to worry about_. "Toby was having trouble staying out of LaPaige's head. I mean, when LaPaige first grabbed us, Toby went along with it pretty easily and he said it was because LaPaige _wanted_ it so badly – like Toby could feel how badly he wanted it too. Then, when LaPaige got upset 'cause Charlie wasn't calling right away, Toby tried to smooth things out; like, make him feel better. Toby was doing that whole..." Oz widened his eyes and made a Toby-face at the bathroom door, "that whole la-la land thing he does when he's listening to someone's mind. The situation was, like, super-stressful, you know?"

"Toby has lines." Ray was using his quiet, soothing voice, "He has worked really hard at drawing lines between what he's thinking and what other people are thinking. But with strong emotions, especially when those emotions align, those lines get harder to maintain. If Toby is very upset, and the other person is also very upset, it is more difficult to distinguish one upset from the other. Sometimes, if the other person has a solution to that upset, Toby is more likely to go along with it because he can't quite untangle his feelings from that other person's."

"Yeah." Oz said. "That sounds right. You need to help him work on that."

"We have been working on that Oz. It's always been a top priority." Ray chuckled. It wasn't really a happy sound. "With Toby, a lot of things are top priority."

"I hear you, man. Here's the other part: after Toby shot LaPaige, he was really having trouble staying out of my head. I mean, I would think something and Toby would say it. It was weird, like an echo of sorts. I've never seen him do it quite that way. You know how sometimes he'll answer a question that you think, or just talk to you while you're thinking? Well, this wasn't that."

"It was traumatic circumstances, Oz. I'll have to talk to Toby, of course, but it was probably just the stress of the event."

"Yeah." Oz ran a hand through his hair and found it dry. "Stress. Look, they're probably wondering where I am by now. You're coming then?"

"I'll be there in fifteen minutes." Ray confirmed.

"Good. That's good. I'll see you when you get here then."

"Thank you for calling me, Oz. I'll be there shortly."

Oz hung up. Then he stared at the ceiling and contemplated the mystery that was his best friend.

The phone rang.

Oz almost didn't answer it. It was Liv's phone, after all. Then he considered poor Ray and the fact that nobody had talked to him. Oz answered the phone.

"Olivia Fawcett's phone."

"Osman Bey." Uh oh. It was his full name. Olivia sounded way too sweet to be using his full name. "Who have you been talking to? You've been on the line for ages."

"Uh, I gave Ray a call. I thought it might be a good idea."

"Oh." Olivia faltered. Then she came back, sounding more business than dangerous. "Detective Marks is here. She would like to get your statement. Sometime this night, I'm sure."

"I'll be right up, okay?" Oz got to his feet and unlocked the door. The basement was still deserted as he made his way back to the elevators. "You get Toby all...smoothed out?"

"Toby's fine." Liv had a great way of sounding pert and annoyed and proper and amused all at once. "Thanks for asking me if you could borrow my phone, by the way."

"I'll buy you a coffee." Oz was unrepentant. "You can tell Toby it's a date."

"Dinner. I'm an expensive date. 'Sides, then we can both bitch about Toby when he's not there."

Oz could hear something that sounded suspiciously like 'I'm sitting right here' on Liv's end of the line, but he dismissed it as nonsense.

"Deal. Be there in a sec." Oz flipped the phone closed and got in the elevator to go back up. Charlie knew the secret but Liv didn't. They'd have to do this in private.

When Oz exited the elevator, however, Liv was standing there waiting for him. She held out her hand. Oz handed the phone over. "Marks is waiting for you in the examination room." Liv had that thunderous look she got on her face whenever she had to give Toby and Charlie alone time. "Officer Jansen's going to make sure you're not disturbed. Feel free to rush over there and refuse to leave until Charlie does."

"Oh, Liv." Oz edged around her and subtly, sneaky-like-ninja, got out of arms reach, "There's nothing going on between Toby and Charlie. I think Becker might throw Toby over a bridge in a pair of cement shoes if there was."

Liv shook her head. "I'm not an idiot, Oz. And I don't own Toby. Though after tonight, somebody ought to put a leash on him."

"That's what I was thinking!" Oz said, and didn't run down the hall to the safety of the examining room. Both Charlie and Toby had guilty looks on their faces when Oz burst into the room and slammed the door behind himself, the kind of guilty looks Oz knew meant they'd been talking about secret stuff.

"Toby was just telling me about LaPaige." Charlie said.

"He knows." Toby looked at Charlie. "Oz was the first person I ever really told."

"Oh." Charlie examined Oz with new interest, and Oz tried not to puff up his chest in pride – because Toby had told him first. Toby had trusted him first. "Well, then. Why don't you have a seat, Oz?" Charlie looked back at Toby. "Does anybody else know?"

"Ray knows. Ray's known since I was a kid. He helped me."

"That's it?"

"Olivia doesn't know." Oz figured Toby was answering the question Charlie was really asking. "So yeah, that's it."

"Huh." Oz wished he was a mind reader. He had no idea what Charlie was thinking. "Alright boys. What happened with LaPaige?"

Oz helped Toby recount the story a second time ("totally could have kicked his ass!" and "You don't know what he was thinking, Oz") then shot Toby a hang dog expression when Ray knocked on the door and Toby glared at Oz.

"I thought he should know." Oz shrugged helplessly. "Nobody even called him, Toby. He cares about you."

"Toby." For once, Ray wasn't perfectly coiffed. He'd obviously got dressed in the dark and simply run a hand through his thin hair on the way to the hospital.

"Oh." Toby's face completely changed. "Oh, Ray. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you."

"Well," Ray's mouth was twisted in something like wry acknowledgment. "Well." Then he swept forward and wrapped Toby up in a hug.

Oz suddenly desperately wanted to see his parents.

"Uh, guys? I'm gonna head home then, okay? Charlie, you finished?"

"I know where to find you, Oz." Charlie said, and followed him out the door.

Liv was waiting at the front desk.

"Shrink's in there," Oz said. "Give 'em a moment."

"I think that might be an offensive term, Oz." But Liv was smiling. She shook her phone at him. "I took a page from your book, and made a call."

"Osman!"

Oz spun around. "Mom!" She took his face between her hands and kissed him on his eyelids, and his cheeks, and the tip of his nose. Then she sobbed against his chest. "Oh Mom, I'm fine. I'm fine. Everything's okay." Oz smiled at his dad over the top of his mom's head.

Charlie leaned against the counter beside Olivia. "Good call."

"Well," Olivia grinned at Charlie, "I know a good idea when I see one."

* * *

Author's note: Okay, I really was dragging my butt all through this one but I was determined to get it out today. Happy Canada Day everyone! *waves flag* Oh, Caaaaannnaaadaaaa!

So, here are my issues with this section: It's slow. Oz spends a lot of time re-telling things you guys already know – a big no-no in writing – and the action is all emotional (not something I'm fully comfortable with). Also, Ray is the single most difficult character for me in this show, I think...and I know you guys were looking forward to him. So, straight up, how does Ray measure up for you?


	6. Chapter 6

Author's Note: Hi guys! I'm so sorry this took me so long to get out. I had initially planned to post at least every second week, but this month has been kicking my butt as far as time goes (on the upswing, I'm paying off my student loans like crazy...but I'm literally working ten hours a day, six days a week. Just for the summer, just for the summer, just get up and go...^_^)

Hi Soului! Typos aren't such a little thing! That's why we have editors (or at least, that's why I should...). I know what you mean. When a person is trained to spot things like that, it pulls them right out of the story and disturbs the reading process. I'm sorry to say I have no idea how to fix it now that it's up. If anybody is an alumni, feel free to drop me a note! I have gone over this chapter several times, so hopefully you won't spot any mistakes. Let me know if you do! I'm always eager to improve and things like this remind me to stay on my toes.

* * *

**Affinity part 6**

* * *

INCIDENT DATA

Incident Type: _**Suspected Hostage Situation**_

Address of Occurrence: _**1709 Hawkton Dr., TO**_

Originally Received As: _**Extortion Attempt against Officer**_

How Received: _**Telephone**_

Type of Premise: _**Residence (Anywhere on Premises)**_

Date/Time of Occurrence: _**July 1/10, 0239 – 0246 HRS**_

Officer Assaulted or Killed: _**No**_

Officer Injured: _**No**_

Weapon or Objects Used: _**No **_

Processed By: _**Det. Charlie Marks**_

VICTIM

Name: _**Osman Bey**_

Date of Birth: _**Dec. 29/1978**_

Nationality: _**Canadian**_

Occupation: _**EMT**_

VICTIM

Name: _**Toby Logan**_

Date of Birth: _**June 1/1979**_

Nationality: _**Canadian**_

Occupation: _**EMT**_

KNOWN SUSPECT:

Name: _**Andy LaPaige**_

Date of Birth: _**Aug. 6/1983**_

Nationality: _**Canadian**_

Occupation: _**Telephone Line Technician**_

KNOWN SUSPECT:

Name: _**Sara Tucker**_

Date of Birth: _**Feb. 23/1987**_

Nationality: _**Canadian**_

Occupation: _**Office Assistant**_

NARRATIVE

_**Officers approached the residence belonging to Sara Tucker on July 1/10 at 0239. Officers entered the residence from the front and rear entrances simultaneously. Officers encountered and subdued a large dog at the rear entrance. No other resistance was issued. The single occupant of the residence was located in the second floor master bedroom. Target suspect was not present. Hostages were also not present. Ms. Sara Tucker indicated that she was not aware of Mr. Andy LaPaige's activities. Ms. Tucker initially told the officers she was also not aware of Mr. LaPaige's location. Ms. Tucker shortly thereafter recanted her statement. She indicated Mr. LaPaige may be found at another residence: 973 Arcadi...Bust was bust. One big, career ending, fuck up fucking fuck cluster. If anybody's reading this, Becker stashed my body in the supply closet. **_

Charlie punctuated the final sentence right through the paper. She dropped her pen and stared at the wall. Interestingly enough, Becker had not pasted a picture of her face that had been used for target practice where she could see it. Charlie contemplated the generic, beige wall. Becker probably wouldn't take pot shots at Charlie anyway. Nah. It was Toby's picture he had hung up in the shooting gallery. Charlie was a detective. She could figure that shit out.

Charlie was having a serious crisis of faith regarding her super-duper detecting skills. Because apparently, while she and the rest of the police department had been invading the bedroom of a hundred pound girl in pink lingerie, Toby had been shooting a serial killer's brother clear across the city.

Becker was covering for Charlie. He was currently in a meeting with the higher-ups that Charlie had not been invited to. Had they known the bust had gone on her word, she would have been invited. She would have been chewed up, spit out, and demoted, put on desk-duty, reprimanded, or something otherwise equally humiliating. Then Becker would have had to justify his decision to mount a full, tactical, home invasion on the hunch of a junior detective.

Instead, Becker was taking the hit. He was higher profile. They wouldn't question him as rigorously if there was no obvious sign of impropriety. Sometimes, shit just happened.

Charlie was going to owe Becker. God Damn. Becker was no slouch when it came to making his detectives pay their debts.

And this debt was going to be hard. Becker already thought there was something twitchy going on between Charlie and Toby. Toby – in his stupidly blunt, too intuitive, freaking mind-reader way - always knew way too much about Charlie's cases and he could never keep his mouth shut around Becker. It had to be a male-territory pissing contest thing. Sometimes, when they were posturing at each other, Charlie would stand there thinking about Nature Channel shows she had seen late at night, _and then the bucks lock horns and struggle for dominance until they both fall off a cliff, because they're too stupid to watch where they're going! Then the female laughs her ass off. Ha ha. Ha. _

Toby never seemed to hear her. It was odd behaviour, Charlie thought, because Toby wasn't a particularly pushy guy. Charlie had a pretty good feel for people. Screw her crisis of faith. She was a damn good detective. Not many women her age made detective. Charlie knew she was good. She knew how to read people. Becker totally was a pushy alpha male type. He would absolutely posture for top-dog spot. Toby was the type to let things slide. Except when he was around Becker. Charlie didn't get it at all.

Charlie looked back down at her report. Then she crumpled it up and tossed it in the recycling bin. She pulled a fresh report paper and smoothed it across her desk. She clicked her pen and set to work.

Incident Type: _**Suspected Hostage Situation**_

* * *

Oz had weird dreams about being chased by brachiosaurus (-es? –us? –er?). For some strange reason Toby was there, telling him that the brachiosaususes just wanted a little bite. Oz looked up and their broad, flat teeth were as big as he was.

"I'm not big enough!" He told Toby, "They'll eat everything." Oz woke up feeling angry and mumbling something incomprehensible. He swatted the blanket off his face and untangled it from around his neck. His pillow was on the floor and his back ached something awful. He tried to remember why he was supposed to be getting up.

He should call Ryder. It was Thursday. He worked Thursdays. But there was probably some sort of traumatic kidnapped-while-at work-by-gun-toting-psychopath clause which meant he didn't have to go to work.

Oz really, really didn't want to call Ryder.

He should just assume that he didn't have to go to work.

What if Ryder was expecting him?

Oz didn't want to have to smooth Ryder over, either. Ryder really wasn't an easy going guy.

He should call Toby, and see if Toby had called Ryder.

Toby picked up on the second ring. "You don't have to be at work until Tuesday, Oz."

"Holy shit! You can read my mind through the phone line?"

"I'm omnipotent," Toby's voice went deep and mysterious, "I know everything."

"You're bullshitting me." There was a long silence on the other end of the line. "No, really? Reeeealllly, Toby?"

"Oz, you're not up at this time of day unless you have to be at work. So you can go back to bed now. I already called in. Nobody wants to see us 'till next week."

"I can't sleep." Oz confessed, "I keep getting eaten by dinosaurs - plant eating dinosaurs no less. What do you think that means, Toby? It's gotta be something pretty weird. Like, am I afraid of vegetarians? Hey, maybe LaPaige was a vegetarian. Do vegetarians eat Kraft Dinner? Hey, maybe I have some latent psychic ability, like I could pick up the fact that LaPaige was a vegetarian without him ever telling us."

"I don't think LaPaige had any moral qualms about meat." Toby said dryly. "Do you want to talk, Oz? You can come over. Olivia is here, but she has to go to work soon."

"Have you had breakfast yet? I could pick something up along the way?"

There was a muffled discussion over the line. "I got the stuff to make pancakes. Pick up some syrup and we'll be ready when you get here."

"You got it, buddy." Oz considered his reflection in the mirror then decided on a quick, two minute shower. "I'll be there in twenty." Oz was pushing it, considering rush hour traffic, but he wasn't the driver in the wagon for nothing.

There was another quick, muffled exchange on the other end. "Maple and blueberry syrup, OK?"

"Done. See you in a bit." Oz flipped the phone closed and hopped in the shower. The hot water felt good. He'd spent nearly half an hour in the shower the night before, but he still felt like he could stand there forever. Pancakes, Oz told himself, and soaped up, lathered, rinsed, and got out. He found his most comfortable pair of jeans and an old, shapeless hoodie. When he hit the streets, his hair was still wet from the shower.

He stopped long enough to pick up the syrup, parked the car in front of Toby's building, and buzzed Toby to let him up.

"I got syrup." Oz shook the bottles at Olivia when she opened the door.

"You're my sugar daddy." Olivia deadpanned. She snatched the maple syrup bottle. "Let Toby have his pansy blueberry syrup sludge. I'm having the real stuff."

Oz followed her into the apartment. The place smelled good. Oz plopped himself down on the worn, familiar couch and twisted over the back to watch Toby flip flapjacks.

Toby was still in his PJ's.

"Did you guys have a sleep over?"

"We're not in sixth grade." Toby didn't rise to the bait. "Liv stopped by to check in before her shift." He grinned at Liv. "She wanted to make sure I was safe and sound."

"The sound part is debatable." Olivia set three plates on the table. She placed the forks and knives neatly alongside the plates, and positioned the water glasses carefully at the top left corners of the plates. "Toby keeps getting...distracted."

"Distracted? Like ADD distracted or absent seizure distracted?" Oz realized suddenly how horrible that sounded and tried to amend what he had said. "I don't mean real absent seizures. Toby doesn't have seizures. He just gets...headaches, sometimes. And sometimes they look like...seizures."

"Nice, Oz." Toby flipped a pancake onto a waiting plate and carefully edged the scraper under the next pancake. "Smooth."

"I am the original Mr. Smooth." Oz cast Olivia an apologetic look. "What kind of distracted?"

Olivia shook her head. "It's been a rough couple of days." She didn't look at Toby at all. "I'm just being a little sensitive."

Poor Olivia. She was trying to be so careful. She had no idea.

Toby cast a sideways look at Oz.

"Well!" Oz said brightly, and hopped to his feet, "Who's ready for pancakes?"

"The ones on the bottom aren't burnt." Toby dropped the plate on the table and pulled Olivia's chair out for her. She gave him an amused look but didn't comment and took her seat gracefully.

"I like my pancakes a little burnt." Olivia helped herself to one on the top.

"I know." Toby grinned at her and snagged the blueberry syrup. He wavered over pouring it, then put the bottle down and reached for the maple syrup.

Olivia reached for it at the same time. They both paused, fingers brushing over the bottle. She quirked an eyebrow, "Converted you, have I?"

Toby stared at her. "I..." He stared some more.

Oz cleared his throat loudly and reached obnoxiously across Toby's plate for the blueberry syrup. He accidentally elbowed Toby in the chest.

Toby blinked, "I thought I'd try something new."

Olivia was wearing the hang-dog, concerned expression again. She cast a pointed look at Oz. Oz didn't have to be a mind reader to know Olivia was telling him Look! See that? Distracted! And pointing her mental finger like a set of flashing neon lights.

_Smooth, Toby_. Oz thought sarcastically. It was definitely time to do his best friend job and change the subject.

"Mom and Dad say hi." Oz said brightly. He smothered his pancake in butter, piled another pancake on top of that one, and messily poured blueberry syrup over the whole thing. "They want you to come to the restaurant for dinner, one night after closing. I told them you'd like that but to let you have a few days to yourself first. Otherwise, they'd have you over there tonight." Oz stuffed a bite in his mouth and chewed enough to talk through it, "You should come too, Liv."

"That's really sweet, Oz. I've never been to your folk's place."

"It's good." Toby promised her. "They'll treat you like family." He brushed a hand through his hair and left it standing up in wild clumps. "I wasn't really planning on getting dressed today."

"Uh hu." Oz was half way through his pancakes already. He mopped the plate with another bite. "I figured. Wanna spend the day ordering movies on pay-per-view and not doing anything?"

Olivia spit some coffee back into her cup. Nope, that definitely wasn't a giggle.

"We're not in sixth grade." Toby said again, this time to Olivia. "And I don't have any nail polish. Or chocolate ice cream."

Olivia rolled her eyes. "Hey, I didn't say anything."

"You were thinking it."

"Well," Olivia retorted smartly, "You must have been thinking it, too, Mr. Psychic, because you said it first."

Oz did not choke on his pancakes. Even if he had, he was having breakfast with a doctor and a paramedic. One of them would have given him the Heimlich.

"Chew your food, Oz, don't breathe it." Toby clapped him on the shoulder. "We're off-duty."

"I'm not." Olivia stood, and downed the rest of her coffee like a seasoned pro. "I have to go to work." She gathered her plate and cup and planted them in the sink. "Have fun boys." She dropped a kiss on the top of Toby's head, then kissed Oz's for good measure, too. "Be good, be safe, don't get kidnapped."

"Ha ha." Toby stood and slipped an arm though Liv's. "I'll walk you to your car."

Liv smiled at Oz, "A gentleman." She observed, and waited long enough for Toby to stuff his bare feet haphazardly into his runners.

"I'll be right back." Toby said, and the two of them were gone.

Oz helped himself to a third pancake and snagged the paper off the counter. He shook it open and looked over the first couple pages.

He found it on the third page.

**LOCAL EMTS HELD HOSTAGE**

**A disturbing incident occurred yesterday when two on-duty EMTs were taken hostage. The EMT's were attending a call in the industrial district when Andy LaPaige forced them into their ambulance at gunpoint and made them drive him to a local residence. Andy LaPaige is the older brother of infamous serial murderer Oliver LaPaige, recently convicted for the brutal killings of three local families. **

**The EMT's were able to overpower LaPaige and call 911. Neither was harmed. Andy LaPaige is currently in hospital for unspecified injuries. There is no information regarding LaPaige's intentions. Neither EMT has been reached for comment. **

**Sources say police raided a suburban home several hours after the EMT's were reported missing. Unfortunately, police invaded the residence of a young woman instead of LaPaige's home. This latest bumble only tarnishes an already blemished police image. Following the death of Ro...**

"Charlie's not going to like that."

"Jesus!" Oz jumped in surprise and knocked his funny bone on the edge of the table. He rubbed his elbow and glared at Toby. "I didn't hear you come in."

Toby shrugged. "I hadn't realized there was anything in the paper already."

"It's not much." Oz looked back down at the article then carefully folded the paper and put it back on the counter. "Nobody tried to contact me. Anybody try to call you?"

"Ryder's had a few phone calls asking for contact information." Toby grinned at Oz. "Nobody calls back a second time."

"Boss-man has our backs, huh?"

"He does." Toby folded himself into the kitchen chair with an air of exhaustion. "It's been a long couple of days, Oz. I'm feeling kinda spent."

"I know what you mean, buddy. I could do with a little peace and quiet myself." Oz patted Toby sympathetically on the shoulder.

"Yeah. Quiet." Toby took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. "I'm a little shaky, Oz." He tapped his temple. "I mean, on the boundary front. I've got to...draw lines."

Oz thought about this. "Ray said that – about lines. He said you needed to know where they were so you didn't cross them. What kind of lines are we talking about here, Toby? Like, thou shalt not welch on bets type-lines, or I hate string beans type-lines?"

"I like blueberry syrup better than maple syrup type lines."

"Ah. Olivia caught that, you know. She knows something's up."

"She's never going to guess what. People never do. Most people wouldn't even believe me at first."

"I believed you."

"You're pretty much one of a kind, Oz." Toby looked away, suddenly shy. "Charlie's trained to let the facts tell the story, and Ray...Ray learned to believe me." He smoothed the edge of the table with his fingertips. "Most people... their minds aren't as open. When I was a kid...I told a few people. At school. Once, in a foster home. They smiled, they said they believed me. And in their heads, they were thinking I was a lying freak."

"That's not Liv." Oz said immediately. "C'mon, Toby. I might not get this thing you got with her, but you know her. You know that's not what she'll think."

"Liv is very black and white. She has strong opinions." Toby laughed. It wasn't a particularly happy sound. "It's one of the things I love about her. She has lines. Even, lines about syrup."

Oz blinked. "You're attracted to her mind?" Something suddenly clicked. "That's your type! You know, I've always kind of wondered. Duh. Of course, it's all about how women think, 'cause you totally know how they think. That totally explains everything. That's why you completely blew off that blonde in the coffee shop last month. 'Cause she was gorgeous. Like, totally stunning. Any guy with a pulse would have jumped at that."

Toby remembered the pretty girl. They had been grabbing some lunch while on shift. She had looked at Oz standing next to Toby and seen only his dark hair and dark skin. "She wasn't after me for my sunny personality, Oz. A guy has to have some self respect."

"Self respect," Oz shook his head. "Whatever floats your boat. So, you're not going to tell Liv because she likes maple syrup?"

Toby laughed, just like Oz had intended. "I will. I will tell her one day. I just have to...work up the nerve. And it has nothing to do with syrup. The syrup's just an example." He gave Oz his most earnest look. "Olivia pushes my boundaries sometimes. And right now, I'm not holding them up very well. I wanted to talk to you about that – about what happened."

"After you shot LaPaige." Oz knew exactly what Toby was trying to get at without saying it. Reading Toby's mind without any super powers was part of Oz's best friend responsibilities. "You got a little...distracted. Ray explained. He said it was the stress."

"It was...overwhelming."

Oz shook his head. "I don't get it, Toby. You're trained to handle stress. We walk into stressful situations all the time. What happened this time?"

"Other people's situations. Other people thinking about what's happening to them, not about us. All of LaPaige's intent was directed at us. It was like being under a spotlight. Most people don't think things, want things, directly at me. Even when they're talking to me, they're thinking about what they have to do next, or what they had for lunch, or whatever. They don't get pushy. LaPaige was pushy, and once he broke through it was harder to keep everything else out." Toby struggled for words. "When I was a kid, Ray helped me build these boundaries – these lines – that other people weren't supposed to get through. We went away – lots of quiet places where there weren't a lot of people – and I figured out what I liked. Then, if I found myself thinking something different than that, I knew it wasn't me." Toby shrugged. "It's not infallible, but it was the basis for the stronger boundaries I built as I got older."

"So LaPaige got into your head."

"Yeah. Yeah, he did." Toby stilled the nervous motion of his fingers along the edge of the table. "Ray and I are going to work on that, Oz. I won't let it happen again. You can count on me."

"I know I can." Oz said. And he believed it one hundred percent. "You're my partner. I got your back. So, what can I do to help?"

* * *

The first thing Olivia did when she got on shift was check in on LaPaige. Doctor Yoland was the doctor handling LaPaige's case, but the whole hospital staff knew what had happened with Toby and they were perfectly willing to keep Doctor Fawcett abreast.

The nurse at the station brought up LaPaige's information immediately. "The bullet fragmented. There were a few shards remaining in the deep muscle tissue which Dr. Yoland surgically removed. The blood-loss is a big concern. We have him scheduled for a second transfusion today. LaPaige is currently running a low-grade fever and we have him on antibiotics for infection." The nurse looked up at Olivia. "It's not great, but I've seen worse." Olivia nodded. The nurse continued. "He's cuffed to the bed and there is an officer on duty twenty-four seven." The nurse checked her notes. "Officer Jansen."

Jeeze. Who had that kid pissed off to end up stuck on this beat so often?

"Let me know if anything changes." Olivia said.

The nurse nodded. "Will do." She twisted a strand of hair thoughtfully through her fingers then looked directly at Olivia. "Tell Logan we're thinking of him, okay? And Oz." The nurse grinned and Olivia suddenly took note of the name on her tag: Frieda Mayer. "Place isn't so pretty to look at without them around, don't you agree Doctor Fawcett?"

Olivia tried really heard not to narrow her eyes. "There's a potted plant in the corner." She said. "You can look at that."

The nurse's grin didn't waver one bit. "It's plastic. Plastic's just not quite the same as the real thing."

Olivia gave in and smirked at the nurse. The nurse's eyes widened and her smile finally slid. "I totally did not mean that!" She laughed at herself. "You're the one with the filthy mind, not me." She picked up her chart and waved it threateningly at Olivia. "Go stalk the psychopath in room 306. Maybe you can make his hospital stay hell."

Olivia hummed to herself and went off to do just that.

* * *

A note on the writing: This particular chapter was written in chunks over the last three weeks – hence the changing point of views. I was having trouble getting where I wanted to go with Toby and Oz, so I let Charlie and Liv distract me. How was Toby's explanation of what happened? Did it make sense? I'm hoping the idea of 'lines' seems plausible and not too sword and sorcery. Again, sorry for taking so long to get this out!


	7. Chapter 7

Author's Note: Thank you Master Li, Piper Julian, WickedBluerose, gabriel42, and shmeeped! Special thanks to Soului, for showing me the ropes. I always appreciate the comments guys – I'm actually kind of embarrassed about how truly uplifted I feel whenever someone drops me a note. I hope you're all enjoying your summers!

* * *

**Affinity Part 7 **

* * *

"Hey." Olivia said in the dark. The grey-black glow of the idle TV screen cast the edges of the nearest objects in silver shadow. The movie had wound to an end sometime after both of them had fallen asleep and now neither one could rouse the energy to find the clicker and turn the TV off.

Olivia turned her head. Her lips brushed the skin of his throat as she spoke. "Hey. What time is it?"

He couldn't see the clock from this angle. The apartment was very dark.

"Late." Olivia sighed. She was warm and heavy. He felt strangely lethargic. "I should go." Liv said, but she didn't move. Her hand found the groove of his ribs underneath his T-shirt and she drew idle patterns there. "I should go." She said again, but she didn't mean it. What did she mean?

"You should stay." Toby said.

Liv chuckled, low and sweet. She had a nice laugh. "Or I could stay. Took you long enough."

"Mmmmm."

Liv raised her head and pressed a kiss to the point of his chin. She bypassed his mouth and pressed a second to the end of his nose. "You gonna make me sleep on the couch?"

He could fall into her eyes, here in the dark. He shook his head.

Olivia rewarded him with a kiss on the mouth.

* * *

They were half-way through the second _Tremors_ (Which Toby, citing good taste, had never seen before and Oz had wacked him over the head with a couch pillow and waxed poetic about film-snobbery sucking all the good stuff out of modern film-making because, honestly – _Tremors_ pretty much was the only movie he and his cousins had ever been able to agree upon at those interminable family reunions his folks used to drag him to once a year when he was a kid; it was just that awesome. Then, of course, they had to go rent all four of them because Oz was determined to make Toby realize just how great the films really were) when Toby suddenly decided he needed a breath of fresh air.

"I can't stop thinking about things." Toby muttered, and went out the window and up the fire-escape without even waiting for Oz.

Oz cursed. He cursed Toby for being a broody, moody, fretful mutant; He cursed Toby for his sense of dramatics because – and it didn't matter how hard Toby tried to deny this, it was darn well true and Oz had the stories to prove it – Toby was a drama queen; He cursed Toby for taking the freaking fire-escape and not the stairs like a normal person would have done. Seriously. They weren't teenagers anymore. Climbing through windows and up super narrow stairs with the added torture of being able to see through them was not fun.

Oz got halfway out the window then decided he wasn't going to do it. Nu uh. No way.

He hauled himself back into the apartment (and it wasn't an effort. It wasn't), plopped back down on the couch, and thought really loudly, _I am watching the rest of this movie. If you're not down here by the end of it, I'm coming up there. _

Oz paused and listened. There was no answer, of course.

_Don't make me come up there. _

Then, just because Toby had to be totally temperamental, Oz couldn't get into the rest of the movie. Instead, he sat worrying over what Toby was worrying over.

Oz tried another tactic.

_They're breeding! The Graboids are breeding!_

_Ooooohh, man! Burt shot the car! Total over kill, but totally worth it. You've got to see this. _

_Boom! _

_C'mon Toby, really? Are you really gonna sit up there all day and miss this? _

_Can you even hear me? _

Finally the credits rolled and Oz dug the clicker out from under the couch cushions and turned the TV off. Oz got up and fetched the beer out of the fridge. He found Toby's cooler and filled it with ice from the dispenser. He loaded the whole thing up and was nearly out the door before he thumped the cooler back on the floor and stood there, thinking.

Damn.

_Damn!_

Oz went back into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water. He stood over the kitchen sink and stared out the window. A woman on the street below walked a trio of big, black dogs. A couple crossed the street on the other side. They stopped in front of a shop window and examined the menu posted behind the glass. Two young boys sped past on skateboards.

Oz poured the water down the drain, placed the glass in the sink, shored up his nerves, and went up to the roof.

He made one quick stop at Toby's bathroom cabinet first.

* * *

Toby was eleven when Ray first met him. Toby had been referred to him by another psychiatrist and Toby's caseworker had shown up at Ray's office five consecutive days in row to get Ray to take the case. The woman was damn persistent. Ray was impressed, not that he told her that. Not many people could out-glare his secretary.

Ray was not a child psychiatrist. He wasn't even working in the field. Ray did primarily theoretical work and he was based out of the university. His few remaining cases were holdovers from his field days. He wasn't looking for new patients.

Toby's file was as a thick as _War and Peace_.

Toby Logan was severely autistic; no, it was an extreme case of Post Traumatic Stress; no, it was an unspecified Pervasive Developmental Disorder; no, it was early onset schizophrenia; no, it was selective mutism; God only knew what was wrong with Toby Logan.

He had been in seven foster homes. Seven. The kid was eleven years old.

His case worker couldn't keep him in a place. Even the places with trained care-workers eventually found the boy overwhelming. Nobody knew what to do with him.

"Look," the case worker said when Ray finally agreed to have lunch with her – her name was Tara Grenier - and let her talk him into taking the boy on. "Just meet him. A couple times a month. Tell me what you think." She grimaced. "Everybody's got a theory and nothing ever quite pans out. I can't do anything for him anymore. We don't have any resources left that will fit him and if I don't make something work, I'm going to have to shuffle him down the system." She gave him a hard stare. "That's Never Never Land, in case you weren't sure."

Tara stabbed her salad with her fork and moved it around her plate. "Smithe, his last psych, tells me you're cutting edge. Says you're working on some pretty advanced stuff, stuff that normally doesn't filter down into the field. Now," a limp lettuce leaf was flung across the table and Ray pretended not to see it. Tara kept talking determinedly, "I don't pretend to know what that entails, but if it will help Toby, and you need some case work, then I think we can work out something mutually beneficial."

Tara Grenier was far too used to wheeling and dealing on behalf of her young clients. Ray didn't need a case study. He could spare a couple hours.

"I'll meet him," Ray told her. "Two hours, on Wednesday. But," he held up a cautionary finger, "That's not an assurance that I'll take him on full time. Two hours isn't even enough time to really, properly diagnose someone, but I can give you my impressions and I can steer you towards someone who might be better able to help him."

Tara sighed and pushed her plate aside, untouched. "That's more than most will give," she conceded. "What time should I bring him?"

Of course, when Ray met him, Toby was nothing like his file.

* * *

"So." Oz thumped the cooler down between them and kicked the extra lawn chair that lived on the roof into shape beside Toby.

Toby stared up at the clouds passing over head.

Oz dumped his prize from the bathroom cabinet on Toby's stomach. "Put that on before you turn into a lobster." Then Oz gave Toby the fish eye until he rolled up his shirt sleeves and started spraying on the sunscreen.

Oz opened a beer when Toby finished, passed it to Toby, opened one for himself, and flopped out on the chair.

They drank in silence.

The clouds drifted by.

"That one looks kind of like my aunt. Did I ever tell you that story about the time she went to a symposium down in the states with some of her girlfriends? One of her girlfriends got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and clogged the toilet. She tried to turn the water off but the handle for the valve came off in her hand so she had to call down to front desk. Of course, all the girls were up by then so they all saw the poor guy arrive at the door with a toilet plunger. He said the hotel wouldn't let the guests have it and he had to plunge the toilet himself. So this kid wades into that bathroom and starts plunging the toilet and my aunt's friend realizes she's going to have to tip the guy. Only, nobody has any cash. Between the lot of them, they had twelve pennies and a dime."

This story got Oz chuckling every time and he had to take a moment to breathe.

"My aunt told her not to do it – it'd be even worse to tip the guy in pennies then not at all. But Lena – her friend – said she couldn't not tip the guy after he had to come up there in the middle of the night and plunged somebody else's toilet. So he finishes plunging the toilet and mops up all the flooded water and promises to send up more towels in the morning and Lena thanks the guy and tips him twelve pennies and a dime."

Oz grinned up at the clouds and felt darned pleased with the world. It wasn't a bad world when funny things like that could happen in it.

"I bet the poor kid told the story a different way." Toby's eyes crinkled at the corner.

"Oh, I bet he did." Oz toasted the sky, "But my way is better."

They finished off their beers and Oz cracked open two more.

"I've never been to the states." Toby mused. "Never been out of Canada, actually. Ray rented a cabin once, out in Newfoundland. It was out of town and there was nothing there but storms and ocean. I'd lie up at nights and listen to the waves crash against the shore. The amazing thing was, I couldn't hear anything else. Just that. Just the water and the seagulls and the wind. I'd never heard anything like that, before."

Oz nodded. He could picture what Toby was saying.

"I like the ocean, Oz. I like the storms and the rain and the smell of it. Been a while since I've seen it."

That other cloud kind of looked like a mushroom growing out of a hat.

Oz loved his best friend but he had just been kidnapped by a psycho, gun-wielding, nut job, too. He kind of wanted to spend time with his family: eating dinner, watching movies, assuring the whole crazy lot of them he was all right.

Toby had very, very blue eyes. They were kind of freaky, actually.

Oz sighed. "We do have a whole week off." He said. "You could go somewhere. Somewhere quiet. See the ocean."

Toby looked away. "I might just do that," he said. Then he pointed upward. "Hey, see that? That one kind of looks like a mushroom growing out of a hat."

Oz suddenly decided he had a real hankering to see the ocean.

* * *

Toby Logan was guided forcibly into Ray's office by his elbow. Both hands were clamped tightly over the boy's ears and his eyes were squeezed shut.

He sat when the case worker pushed him into a chair and didn't look at Ray.

Ray thanked Tara and told her to come back in a couple hours. He sat down across from Toby and looked at the boy.

The boy had dark hair and very fair skin. He'd probably freckle if he got out in the sun more. There was blood under his nails, Ray noted, but Ray couldn't see a worry-itch anywhere visible. The corners of his mouth and eyes were drawn white, like he was in real, physical pain. Ray wanted to reach out, and draw the boy's hands away from his ears but Ray's training held him in place. He wondered what colour the boy's eyes were.

"Blue," Toby said and opened his eyes. "And my name's Toby, not Boy."

* * *

"Don't worry, sweetheart. Just look at me." Alisha Carr was at the head of the gurney; her partner was driving from the back. They rushed through the emergency doors with the practiced scramble of experienced EMT's.

"No, don't look that way; look right here. I want to see your pretty brown eyes."

The nursing staff rushed to take the gurney from the two ambulance workers.

"There they are. Now, these nurses are going to take you to a hospital bed and Dr..." Carr looked up and saw Olivia on duty, "Dr. Fawcett is going to fix you right up. Okay?"

The nurses took over the gurney and the two EMT's fell back. Olivia lingered with them a moment.

"Fuckin' Pitt Bull." Carr scrubbed at her forehead with the back of her hand. "Fuckin' Pitt Bull whose fuckin' owner was more worried about her dog than the kid whose face it'd just ripped off. That little boy's gonna have scars for the rest of his life."

"I'll do what I can." Olivia promised, and Dr. Fawcett rushed into the fray.

One hundred and twenty three stitches outside and thirty-two inside later, Dr. Fawcett sent the worried parents into the private room where their little boy was sleeping. She told Dr. Erwitz she was taking a break and hid to the staff lounge.

Olivia hated cases like that. It was so unnecessary. If somebody had put a little more effort into socializing the animal, if somebody had made sure it wouldn't ever have access to children, if somebody was just a little more conscientious...

Well. The world didn't run according to Olivia Fawcett.

The nurse Olivia had spoken to about LaPaige at the beginning of her shift - Frieda Mayer – slipped into the break room. She poured herself a glass of water and leaned indolently against the sink, watching Olivia.

"I'm off." She said when she'd finished the water. "Just thought I'd let you know: LaPaige's fever has gone up a couple notches since the start of your shift. He's not responding well to the antibiotics." She shook her head. "Don't think anybody'd give a damn about a scumbag like that anyway, but..."

"It's not our job to decide that." Olivia snapped. "It's our job to give him every possible chance to pull through."

"Hold your horses, missy. I was getting there." Mayer really did have a smart-tastic way about her. "But...if LaPaige doesn't pull through, that's going to cause all sorts of problems for your boy Logan. So." She shrugged. "Fingers crossed." She plunked the glass carelessly in the sink and sassed out the door.

Olivia huffed at her retreating backside.

Liv did not even want to begin contemplating what kind of problems LaPaige's death (if he died...there was a whole myriad of other issues if he lived) might cause Toby. It would be source material for Toby's angst for years to come. Would there be legal issues? Liv didn't know. She could probably call Marks if she really wanted a good idea of the possibilities, but Liv hadn't quite decided if she wanted those worries on her plate just yet. Then there was Toby's secret...

Liv sighed. She wouldn't call Toby about LaPaige just yet. She'd see what way it was going to go first. Then she'd let him know.

* * *

"You don't have to do this."

"Yes I do." Oz snatched the lap top out of Toby's hands and booted it up.

"No, really." Toby said. "You wanted to spend time with your family, and relax, and hang out in familiar old places."

"Read my mind." Toby's password hint was: _**Cnd. wolf in Chicago**_. Really, Toby? Really? Oz typed in **Diefenbaker** and cleared the password page. "Read my mind, Toby." Oz repeated. "What does it say?"

"You're cranky." Toby said immediately. "You were looking forward to sleeping in your own bed for a week with no alarm clock."

"Well, that." Oz rolled his eyes. "What else?"

Toby goggled at Oz like a guppy. Oz ignored him and ran a search on isolated holiday cabins in Newfoundland. Okay, here was one on four acres of land...few! Eight hundred dollars a week. Shit.

Toby was taking too darn long to answer. "What else?" Oz insisted.

" People get annoyed sometimes. They get pissed off and they think bad thoughts and they don't always mean it."

"Huh." There wasn't much else coming up. Maybe they could go north instead? "You know a lot about that, Toby?"

"Yeah," Toby said. "Doesn't matter how much you like someone. Sometimes they rub you the wrong way and you need a little break sometimes."

Oz stopped and thought about that for a moment. He looked up at Toby. "What do you do when somebody needs a little space?"

Toby looked uncomfortable. He worried at an itch in the crook of his elbow. "Back off, I guess."

"See that, right there." Oz wagged his finger triumphantly at his friend. "That proves you were never properly socialized. You don't just back off. People don't just back off. Most people don't have a clue when they're irritating someone and they'll just keep on irritating that someone until that someone gets over it. It's a good thing you have me to tell you these things."

It was, apparently, the middle of the two months of tourist season granted Newfoundland. If ever Oz had wanted to go look at a giant rock, now was the time.

"Now family – and best friends, of course – can read you well enough to tell when you're irritated. Unfortunately, they don't care. They will ultimately love you more than you can irritate them."

Oz settled on a place he liked, and spun the computer to show Toby the picture. "We're going to need more than a week off work." He said.

Toby looked at the picture. He rubbed the mouse pad and clicked through a few more images. "So you don't mind going?"

"No, Toby." Oz said, like he was talking to someone who was being deliberately slow. "I want to go. We'll go on holiday. Fresh air! No smog! Not a single Starbucks for miles and miles around." Oz paused and thought about that. "Oh, God."

* * *

The by-now habitual note on the writing: So, I jumped timelines with this one. For some reason, I feel a lot more comfortable with Ray when Toby's a kid. Huh. However, I'm not entirely comfortable with the holiday idea...should I step out of location for a bit? I've got two possibilities lined up and both are the scenic route to my intended destination (figures the map went out the window at the first opportunity). Let me know what you think of the view!


	8. Chapter 8

Author's note: Thank you Christy – Flare, Elementalkitty, Piper Julian, Redsoprano, alienpuffin, and Soului! You guys make my day!

* * *

**Affinity part 8**

* * *

Toby Logan was a mind reader.

At least, that's what he told Ray. He even seemed to believe it. There were loads of holes in Toby's story regarding how he became a mind reader, but his belief in that fact was rock solid, incontrovertible, absolute.

He might as well have told Ray the sun rose in the morning, and said it with less certainty.

The boy was uncannily intuitive.

Ray was trained not to judge, and not to broadcast initial reactions to anything he was told. When he was working he was a blank slate, a mirror in which his clients could read only their own reflections. They weren't reading him.

But this boy...this boy could read even the most minute, untraceable reactions – reactions Ray had thought well concealed. Ray felt a little unnerved.

"You don't believe me." There was no surprise in Toby's voice.

"I didn't say that."

"You were thinking it."

Ray would never admit this, not even years later when Toby's abilities were simply an amazing fact of life, but he had a hard time keeping his eyes up in that moment. He felt shamed by the look on the boy's face.

"Are you reading my mind right now, Toby?"

"Yes." Toby picked at a tear in the knee of his too-big jeans. "You think I'm crazy."

"That's not what I'm thinking."

Toby flashed Ray a sly look, the corners of his mouth stretching into a wry smile that would have been more at home on the face of a world weary forty-year-old. "You use bigger words, but that's what you mean. I'm not stupid."

"I don't imagine you are. In fact, I rather suspect you're too clever for your own good."

"Now, see, people say that, but it doesn't make any sense. They just mean you're too smart to be docile." Toby flashed Ray another blue-eyed look, checking to see if Ray heard him using big words too. "Just means you have to be too stupid to be bad, if you wanna be good."

Toby surprised Ray. He made Ray laugh.

* * *

Oz was the most awesome, bestest best friend ever. Oz totally kicked ass in the best friend department. Toby had better appreciate how much Oz was willing to do for him.

Oz was about to face the dragon in its cave, beard the lion in his den, strike down the...

"Oz!"

"Shit!" Oz did not squeak. He spun around – manfully – and clapped a hand over his mouth to keep any more high pitched sounds from escaping.

"Oz, it's so good to see you!" Alisha Carr nearly bounced over to Oz, her trademark grin as bright as the sun. "Hey, you look good when you're not riding in the back of my wagon."

"Hey, Carr." Oz grinned back and let her give him a hug. "It's good to see you too."

"Now," Carr stepped back and brushed Oz's shoulders straight, "We weren't expecting to see you until next week. What are you doing here? Can't stay away?"

"Oh," Oz shrugged. He felt a little sheepish. "I gotta talk to Ryder. Toby and I are talking about taking off for a little bit. We're going to need a few days more.

"That's a good idea." Carr looked past him at the door, then back at him. "Working up the courage?"

"No." Oz hurried to dispel that idea immediately. "Just taking in the fresh air."

"Uh hu." Carr shouldered her bag and 'accidentally' knocked into Oz as she walked by, "Well, Ryder's covering your shift with Farmington and he should just be finishing now. Better hurry up and catch him, if you want."

"Geeze." Oz muttered at Carr's back, "A guy gets kidnapped, threatened, attacked, tied up, and he can't even stand outside his place of work and breathe for God's sake."

"Breathe Oz," Carr shouted back, and swung the door open wide enough for Oz to follow her through before it fell shut. "I think Ryder even smiled when he heard you and Logan got out alive. He might be happy to see you."

"Really?" Oz hurried after her. They walked down the hall. "You really think so?"

Carr stopped and shoved Oz. She wagged her finger at the sign above the door she was standing in: Women's Locker Room.

"Oh." Oz was way too sauvé to stumble backwards over his own feet and blush beet red. He glided back like his man Double-Oh-Seven and his face was just naturally, handsomely ruddy. Oz was cool like that. "I'll just...go see Ryder, then."

"You do that." Carr looked at him, then leaned in for one more hug. "Look after yourself, Oz. You and Logan."

"Right." Because Oz always looked after Toby. "I'll see you later."

Toby had better appreciate just how awesome a friend Oz was, because Toby had completely abandoned Oz in this lousy, low-down duty. And now, Oz was about to face the dragon in its cave, beard the lion in his den, strike down the...

"Bey!"

The word 'run' crossed Oz's mind.

"Bey! You're on stress leave. What the hell are you doing in my ambulance bay?"

"Er," Oz made a deliberate attempt to remove his shoulders from the vicinity of his ears. "I just couldn't stay away?"

"You can barely motivate yourself to get here when you're supposed to be here." Ryder loomed. He loomed very well. The man had a masters in looming. "Are you bull shitting me, Bey? Did you show up here, when you're not supposed to be here, just to bull shit me? 'Cause when one of my paramedics goes on stress leave, that means I don't want to see you; I don't want to hear from you; I don't want to even think about you until you're supposed to show up for work again – all mentally together and shit." Ryder's left eye was squintier than his right. Or that was some kind of tic. "Don't make me fill out more paperwork because you showed up in my ambulance bay without your shit together, Bey."

"My shit's together, sir!" Oz did not click his heels. It was a near miss.

"Uh hu." Maybe Ryder sucked on lemons in the morning and practiced that particularly sour look in the mirror every day. "What do you want?"

"Uhh, I need...Toby needs...I mean, Logan and I need a few days off, sir."

"I just spent six hours riding around with Farmington, covering your shift, Bey. Farmington," Ryder breathed all over Oz's face. Oz swallowed hard, "breathes loudly." Ryder snorted air up his nose. "Like that, all day long. It's really, freakin' annoying, Bey." Oz swallowed, then thought better of it and choked half way through. Ryder sneered and straightened. "You're on time off. You don't need to ask for it. I don't want to see you until next week."

"I mean," Oz squeaked, stopped, and conscientiously deepened his voice, "Sir, I need more time. We need more time. See, one week is great and all, but Logan and I were just kidnapped while innocently doing our job, sir. It was very traumatising. I am traumatised. Logan hasn't even left his apartment, sir." Never mind the fact that it had only been two days and Toby was doing some kind of Jedi-meditating mind thing to fix his superpowers before he had to face the big, bad world – or Ryder in person. "We need more time."

"You were kidnapped for all of twelve hours, Bey. That gets you one week. And I gave you one week. If I have to do one more miserable shift with Farmington..." Ryder's threat trailed off and left the worst of it to Oz's imagination. Oz had a good imagination.

"Uh, Logan's not doing so well." Ryder liked Toby better than Oz. Oz knew it. He'd probably have better luck if he played on that. "Actually, he's really troubled. Screaming nightmares, sir. Like, really, really bad."

Ryder stepped back. A look of consternation (or constipation?)crossed his face. Oz imagined towers of extra paperwork were dancing across Ryder's inner eye should either Bey or Logan show up next week without their 'shit together'.

"Screaming nightmares?"

Oz nodded like his head was about to fall off. "Yes sir. Terrible. Terrible things – like...No! And Don't eat the KD! And...things." Somehow, Oz's failure to complete the sentence didn't sound nearly as ominous as Ryder's. How did he do that, anyway?

"Don't eat the KD? No, wait," Ryder warded Oz off with the universal stop signal, "I don't want to know. Just...how much time do you need?"

"Two weeks, sir."

"Fine." Ryder glared. "You owe me, Bey. And, rest assured, I'm going to make you pay."

"Yes sir. Thank you, sir. Looking forward to it, sir."

"Get out of my ambulance bay. I don't want to see you for the next two weeks."

"My pleasure, sir."

"Shut up, Oz. Get."

Oz got.

* * *

"Fawcett."

Olivia paused in the middle of shrugging her coat over her shoulders. She looked up at her visitor, then finished snuggling the coat closed. "Marks." She said dryly.

Marks grimaced. "Charlie." she straightened from her strategic slouch against the waiting room wall. "You up for a cup of coffee? I'm buying."

"Oh. Well in that case, where's the nearest high-end coffee shop?"

"Hospital cafeteria."

Olivia sighed. "I have a pass."

Charlie grinned. She waved her hand as if to say _Howdy, big spender_, or something. It was rather difficult to achieve all that with one expansive gesture. Olivia had noticed, however, that Charlie was rather good at making herself understood. "I haven't had dinner yet."

"Hey, Charlie, you want to join me for dinner?"

"I don't know, Olivia. The pizza delivery guy might miss me."

Olivia smirked. "Well, my TV dinner won't miss me. Screw the cafeteria. I'm sick of the cafeteria. Let's splurge and go for sushi. There's a great place just around the corner. Live a little."

Charlie nodded and fell into step beside Olivia.

"So," Charlie said after a moment. "How's the patient?"

Olivia didn't even pretend not to know what Charlie was talking about. "Deteriorating."

Charlie thought about it. "He gonna make it?"

"It could go either way." A car honked on the street beside them and they both paused a heartbeat to look. It was just an urban road-rager. "Sometimes people fight through when you think there is no way they'd ever make it. Other times, they linger and stay alive only because you've got them wired up and the machines are living for them."

"I wouldn't cry."

Olivia huffed. "That's not the point."

"Just making an observation." They walked in silence for a little longer, then Charlie said what was on both their minds. "It will cause problems for Toby, if LaPaige dies."

"Legal problems?"

"A jury would have to decide."

"It would go to court, then."

"In my experience, yes." Charlie shrugged. "Toby shot the man. Even if it was self defence, that still has to be determined on paper. It might still go that way if LaPaige lives, but there will absolutely be an inquiry if he dies. It could take years. Toby's not going to have an easy time putting this behind him."

Olivia measured her steps a pace. "We shouldn't count on that until it happens."

"Sure." Charlie smiled wanly, "I haven't got a lot of pull right now. There's not much I can do anyway."

"Have you spoken to Toby about this?"

Charlie shook her head. "I haven't spoken to him since that night. I...am not sure I should raise these concerns now, when nothing is solid."

"I agree."

The restaurant came into sight.

"Sometimes," Charlie said, "I really hate the system."

Olivia, for the first time since meeting the woman, felt a swell of camaraderie for Charlie Marks. Maybe dinner would be kind of nice.

* * *

Ray liked Toby. The boy was intelligent, complicated, and unusual. Ray wasn't quite ready to pass the case off just yet. He told the boy's case worker to bring Toby in for a second evaluation three days later. On the day of the second meeting, Ray felt a building anticipation – something that had been missing from his work for longer than he cared to admit.

"Hello, Toby."

"Hello, Mr. Mercer."

"What do you have there?"

"It's a Rubik's cube. See, you have to turn all the pieces until each side is one colour. One of the boys in the home gave it to me. He could do it in under two minute. But I can't do it yet."

Ray sat down beside Toby and watched the boy twist the toy for a moment.

"I like your office. It's quiet."

"It's in the basement."

"There's nobody else close by. You have a lot of space."

"You don't get a lot of space in the home, huh?"

"What you really want to know is, am I antisocial? Do I interact with the other boys?"

Toby had stopped fiddling with the Rubik's. He was staring down at it, tracing the pattern of yellow squares like they held all the answers.

"That's not what I asked, Toby."

Toby looked up. His eyes were very blue. "It's what you were thinking."

"Okay." Ray held the boy's gaze. "I've been thinking about this, Toby. I think we should set some ground rules."

"Okay."

"I think it's very important that we each respond just to what is said out loud."

"Okay."

Ray stopped. The boy had capitulated far too easily. "That's not a problem?"

"No."

Toby had dropped Ray's gaze and was busy twisting the Rubik's cube again. He wasn't engaged anymore.

"Toby? You can tell me if you have a problem with something."

"I'm eleven years old. Problems are for grown-ups."

"I don't think they put an age limit on problems."

"I mean, real problems – like how you're going to pay your rent or should you quit your job because you hate whiny kids whining at you all the time type problems."

"Did somebody tell you they hate whiny kids?"

Toby snorted. "Nobody tells me anything. I'm a kid...I'm the weirdo." He said it plainly, like it was a fact and he didn't feel any which way about it. Ray made a mental note to work on that. Then he chided himself. He wasn't supposed to be working on things long-term with Toby.

"'Sides," Toby continued, "They don't need to _tell_ me."

"Because you read their minds."

"Yes." Toby looked at Ray. It was a very adult look. "I can prove it."

* * *

Obligatory Author's note: Well, I'm predicable. You guys totally sussed where I was going with the Ray and young Toby flashbacks. I'm glad they're working for you, because they're here for the long haul. This chapter is actually not complete – I wanted to get a little farther with it. But I'm already behind my self-imposed deadline (do those ever actually work?) and I'm going off-line for the next week. So here it is, not entirely finished but a tid-bit to tide you and a lead-in for later. Enjoy!


	9. Chapter 9

Hi! I owe everyone an incredible thank you. Each and every one of you – especially Master Li, Piper Julian, , WickedBluerose, rivendellelve, Raven100104, jmss7, miikkuli, ABrownie, marchforward, NightSpear, Kinokiita-tenshi, Here To Annoy, alienpuffin, Alluring Alliteration, gabriel42, Alligates, Whirlwind421, Whirlwind421, inkspell21, and guests. Whoooo! That's quite a list. Every single review, every single note reminded me to come back to this story, and this chapter never would have happened without you guys. So thank you – you have been my driving muses.

That said, I haven't seen any Listener since season one, and I found the new episodes on Shaw to get back into the grove. My viewing experience went a little like this: I love this show! I forgot how much I loved this show. Wait, who are these people? Where's Charlie? Ray? Is that Lieutenant Ford?! Aw...Oz! I love Oz!

So, yeah. This fic is obviously completely behind the times now. Ummm...time machine?

* * *

Affinity

Chapter 9

* * *

Oz's mom had been baking. Most of the food would go to the restaurant, because she never had quite got the hang of baking for less than forty people – especially when she was upset.

Oz's mom was upset.

"I don't understand why you don't just stay here." She shoved the rolls into the oven and slammed the door shut. Her back was as stiff as an angry cat's. "You have no idea what your father and I were going though, when they called us about...about you going missing." The oven mitts were tossed haphazardly across the counter. One slid precariously to the edge, tipped, and fell to the floor. Oz's mom ignored it.

"Osman, beibei, your father is getting older and his heart is not so good anymore. He cannot handle this kind of stress. When you said you wanted to be a paramedic, we did not imagine it would be so dangerous!"

"Mom, it's really not that dangerous. This was a one-time only freak event. Really. I promise."

"That is not true. That friend of yours..."

"Toby."

"Is always getting into trouble. You're a good boy, Osman," She came to stand directly in front of Oz, reaching up to cup his face in motherly-soft hands. "A good man. You stand by your friends, and that's exactly the kind of man we raised you to be. But this boy..."

"Toby."

"Does not make wise decisions. And I know I am just your mother, and no son ever tells his mother everything...

"An-ne..."

"But I fear what we have heard of his escapades is only the edge of the iceberg."

"_Tip_ of the iceberg."

"And I fear what you do and where you go when you are with him." She searched his face for some reassurance.

"You're right." Oz told her, and wrapped his hands around her wrists. "I am exactly who you raised me to be, and that means I stand by my friends. Toby isn't a bad person, Mom. Remember how he helped us, when the restaurant was in trouble? Remember?"

Doubt crossed her face.

"He's the best kind of person, Mom. I promise. And right now, he needs my help – _our_ help – and we owe that to him. At the very least, you owe him a little understanding."

"I'm not..." She stepped back, struggling to express herself. "I do understand, Osman. He is your friend, and you have to make these kinds of decisions on your own, but your father and I...what I don't understand, is why you would go away from us now! We were so worried! Why can't you just stay here?"

There was absolutely nothing believable OZ could admit. He racked his brain (telepathy on the fritz? A pathological need to escape humanity? Zombie contagion?) and let the silence drag on too long. His mom's expression hardened.

"Oz," She said, using the nickname like a weapon, "Are you in love with this boy?"

Oz's jaw dropped. "Mom!"

"Carly has explained things to me." Carly was a young waitress who worked the early shift in Oz's parents' restaurant. She had pink hair and rainbow spacers in her ears. "Things are very different for you than they were for your father and I. We came to Canada – but you were born Canadian. And in Canada, it is very common for people to love other people of the same gender. Carly said she herself went through a stage of 'bi-curiosity'..."

"Mom!" The word was strangled.

"And it would be okay. Osman, I would explain things to your father and he would understand, too. You are Canadian."

"Mom, I am not in love with Toby!"

"Then why," She demanded, "would you choose him over your family at such a terrible time?"

"I'm not...I'm not choosing him over you! Toby is family, too, Mom. He is my best friend."

"You've had other friends. And you've never been so devoted."

Oz shook his head. "Not like this, Mom. I wasn't...in school, I wasn't the most...I wasn't anybody's first choice. I had friends, but they moved on and...that was that."

She shook her head, frustrated and refusing to believe that anybody hadn't seen her son for what he was. "You have more cousins than you know what to do with."

"And I have to get on a plane to see any of them. Mom, Toby's the kind of friend who'll be around to have rocking chair races when we're a hundred. Please, trust me. I'm not choosing him over family. He is family. And that's as far as it goes. I _swear_."

She took a deep breath, her eyes wide and anxious. "Osman, please don't go. Stay. Have dinner with us. Bring your friend...Bring Toby and spend time with your family."

"Mom." Oz reached forward and pulled her into a hug. She clung to him tightly. Oz felt awful. "I can't, An-ne. I promise, I wouldn't be going if it wasn't important. Please understand. This is important."

"You never had secrets from me before you met Toby. You never did anything dangerous."

"I haven't changed, An-ne."

She sniffled, squeezed him tight, and stepped away. "Ugh!" She tossed her hands up in disgust and whirled around to pick up the fallen oven mitt. "Why would you listen to me, anyway? I'm just your mother."

"Mom, I always hear what you say. But I'm all grown up now. I have my own life, too."

"Yes, well. You don't look after yourself well. I was over at your apartment the other day, and the pot in the sink was turning green! What kind of man can't even wash his own dishes?"

"The bachelor kind. Don't go over to my apartment and wash my dishes for me. It's embarrassing."

"It's my job to worry."

"I know." Oz sighed, and snatched up a piece of fresh bread. He stuffed it in his mouth and the unsettled feeling under his skin slowly faded. "As soon as we get back, you can have everybody over for dinner. Heck, we'll have a party, how about that?"

"And then, maybe, you could stay the night here? Sleep in your old room for a few days? Just until your father stops worrying so much?"

Oz laughed. "Yeah. Sure, Mom. Just until Dad stops worrying so much.

* * *

"I'm worried about you." Olivia's voice was low over the phone, her words measured. "You haven't been out much since...since everything happened."

"It's only been a few days." Toby hedged. He stared at the ceiling, his head tipped over the armrest of the couch in front of his TV, his feet stretched out over the other end.

"And all of the sudden, you're leaving town on this harebrained..." She trailed off, took a deep breath. "This isn't like you, Toby. You're not one to leave like this."

If Toby had been in the same room as Olivia, he would have agreed with her immediately. Even without her influence, he wanted to agree with her. "I just need to get my bearings again. Things have been a little stressful."

"I could come with you. I have leave saved up."

Toby hesitated. The moment stretched between them like something fragile. Even without reading her mind, he knew she would take what he said next to heart. "Maybe, after I came back, we could talk about going somewhere. Just the two of us. I would rather...it be about _us _than about...what this is about." Toby trailed off weakly, desperately wishing he could hear what she was really thinking.

Olivia sighed. "Yeah. What_ is_ this about, Toby? Really?"

"Just - things. Kicking around in my head. Things I need to deal with to get back in the game."

There was a long silence on the other end of the line.

"Liv?"

"I need to get back to work. Are you going to be okay, Toby?"

"I'm fine. I promise. Do you want me to call when you're done your shift?"

"No. No, I'm probably going to run late. I'll text. Let you know when I'm off."

"Sure."

Neither of them hung up.

"Bye, Toby."

"Bye, Liv."

Then the dead air silence of Olivia's cell phone disconnecting. Toby hit the off button and pressed the cell phone against his forehead.

For the millionth time, he considered telling Olivia his secret. What would she say? How would she react? Toby ran through an imaginary conversation in his head.

Olivia, I'm a telepath.

No.

Olivia, I'm an X-man.

No, thank you Oz.

Olivia, I know exactly what you're thinking.

She would be angry, Toby thought. He had invaded her privacy, looked uninvited at her most intimate secrets, and stolen her most confidential thoughts. How could she forgive such a breach of trust? Even if she forgave him, how could she forget? Every time he came close, she would be thinking...she would be trying to figure out if he was reading her mind. And he would be, because he couldn't help it. How could she ever feel comfortable around him?

He couldn't tell her. Not yet.

The longer he waited, the worse the confession would be.

A feeling like falling washed over him, and Toby struggled to breathe through it. _Not me_, he told himself. _That's not me_. But he wasn't sure. He couldn't ever be sure.

* * *

"Toby?"

Ray knocked on the door for the third time, listening intently for any noise on the other side. Was that rustling? Ray rattled the door handle. "Toby?"

There was a thump, then the shuffle of feet toward the door. Ray heard the lock turn and Toby let the door swing open.

There were dark circles under his eyes, and his hair stuck straight up on one side and lay flat and greasy on the other. Toby blinked at Ray.

"Can I come in?"

"Uh, yeah," Toby shambled back on socked feet and made room for Ray to pass. "Please."

"How are you feeling, Toby?"

The apartment looked like a bird's nest. There were dishes on the coffee table, blankets stuffed partway under the couch cushions, a trail of clothing scattered haphazardly on chairs, side tables, and even the floor. The couch was at the center of it all, like Toby had been living there and just collecting everything around it.

Normally, Toby's living spaces were strictly kept and tidy. It was a habit he had picked up in foster care and one that provided a small oasis in the clutter of human thought that always surrounded Toby.

This looked like Toby was losing control.

"I'm fine," Toby answered automatically, than shook his head. "I need help." Toby sat down on the couch and looked around as if seeing it for the first time. He nudged at a pillow on the floor with his toe. "Obviously, I guess."

"This is normal, when someone has experienced a crisis. Even for people without any special abilities." Ray reminded Toby gently.

"I'm not normal people," Toby scratched at his elbow, a worry habit Ray hadn't seen in a very long time. "I can't afford this kind of...I can't focus. I keep thinking about cutting the cable because I can't afford it, and there's mice in the storage locker again, and freakin' lunch bag let down – I wish Mom would quit with the peanut butter - , and I've already gone through two bottles of antihistamines because when will allergy season end already, and I'd kill for a deep muscle massage because I've thrown my back out for the third time, and..." Toby tugged at his hair. "I can't wait for the new season of What Not To Wear."

Ray reached out and carefully pried Toby's hands away.

"I ate an entire jar of strawberry jam because I couldn't stop craving strawberries," Toby admitted dejectedly. "Pregnancy food cravings."

Ray turned Toby's hands palm up and massaged circles into the center, concentrating on relaxing the tension he could feel there. "Can you hear what I'm thinking?"

"It's...you're worried. It's been a long time since I was last this out of control – I was a child. This stopped happening after I became an adult."

"You learned who you were. Children are malleable. They are not certain of themselves yet. Adults are harder to sway."

"But not impossible." Toby's breathing had slowed as he became more relaxed, and the stiff line of his shoulders noticeably lowered. "Trauma changes us." He locked eyes with Ray. "A violent readjustment of our perception of reality."

Ray nodded. "When something like that happens, we tend to feel uncertain. We second guess ourselves, and we second guess how we define ourselves."

"And that uncertainty clouds where my lines are drawn."

Ray smiled. "Do you feel more focussed?"

"Yes." Toby squeezed Ray's hands. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." Ray sat back. "But this is only a temporary solution. You can't center yourself on another person, Toby."

"I know. I'm working on it."

"Oh?"

Toby smiled wryly at Ray. "Remember when we used to go camping? I bullied Oz into going with me. We'll get away for a bit and I'll work on it."

"Oz is a good friend. He was the first person to call me and tell me what happened."

"The best." Toby agreed. He ducked his head. "I would have asked you..."

"You know I would be willing, Toby, but you don't have to feel obligated, either."

"You helped me. You always help me. But I think this is something I need to lean to do on my own. Only..." Toby shrugged self deprecatingly. "I don't want to go alone. So. Oz."

"I think," Ray said carefully, "That your willingness to do this without a security blanket," Toby grinned, picking up the gentle humour Ray was carefully disguising while he was in business mode, "indicates a certain optimism about the outcome."

"Oh, good. I'll just borrow that inkling for a bit, hey?"

"You do that." Ray patted Toby's shoulder. "In the meantime, you know my number, you know where I live, any time, night or day."

* * *

Olivia only had forty-five minutes left on her shift when the alarm went off in room 306. The team sprung into action , and she didn't for one second think about that fact that the life under her hands belonged to Andy LaPaige.

* * *

Author's Note: According to google, 'An-ne' is the proper pronunciation of anne, the turkish word for Mom. My appologies if it's not correct (feel free to let me know!). I figured Oz would slip between the english Mom (everyday conversation) and the turkish Anne (more intimate in a duel-language family - the equivelant of 'Mommy') when having an awkward converstion like this. ^_^ Poor boy.


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